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Possible Graphene Alternative Made From Hemp Waste
MTorrice writes "A low-cost chemical process can turn hemp fiber into carbon nanomaterials. Researchers used the materials to make devices called supercapacitors that provide quick bursts of electrical energy. Supercapacitors made with the hemp nanosheets put out more power than commercial devices can."
According to one of the authors, "Hemp bast is a nanocomposite made up of layers of lignin, hemicellulose, and crystalline cellulose ... If you process it the right way, it separates into nanosheets similar to graphene." Perhaps the process could be applied to related plants (hops?) too.
If only pot were legal, and free, we could all just sit around getting high all the time and the world would be a better place. Government will provide what we need by taking it from evil rich people.
Yay, free pot!
I wonder, if marijuana plants can be used for same... A close enough relative to hemp for the latter to be banned in some places...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
My ashtray is full of carbon nanomaterials stemming from hemp products.
Am I rich now?
The researchers was just so high they think they did it. They didn't realize they failed miserably.
legalize it!!
Hemp growing is illegal in the US despite the numerous benefits it can provide
maybe its time to stop letting big business create laws that exist only to benefit their profit margins
They did in fact create a system that puts out more instantaneous energy per unit weight, but that is not the improvement that super capacitors need. They have improved gravimetric power density. The two measures that need improvement to make super capacitors more useful are gravimetric energy density (how much energy can it store in a given weight), and volumetric energy density. How much energy can it store in a given volume. Without significant improvements in those two areas, super capacitors cannot make significant inroads against batteries.
It should also be noted that super capacitors already have better power density than chemical batteries by a wide margin, and are more than sufficient to replace I.C. engines and gasoline in that respect.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
anytime an application needing plant fiber comes along, there's always a group that starts extolling the virtues of hemp for the purpose, because they want industrial hemp to be in common use to hide their short high-THC subspecies of the stuff. Never mind there is ALWAYS other plants with higher yield per acre for any purpose and for any climate, especially in the USA. Just give it up, you silly potheads.
Wow! How high does the charge get?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
N/T
Fuck touchscreen, fuck autospell.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
The wiki link to "bast" refers to a dozen species that produce basts, including flax, wisteria, mulberry, and kudzu.
Is there a reason to go for hemp in particular, aside from the usual hemp-will-solve-everything? Flax is also produced in industrial quantities. TFA doesn't mention why they chose hemp bast.
Look, I'm all for legalized weed and hate the propaganda that makes it out as a devil drug, but I'm not any bigger fan of exaggerations about the wonders of hemp. At least on this web site, it would be nice to look at actual data, rather than who can out-propagandize everybody else.
OMG not the hops too! Think of the children!
Worse case Ontario, we just get drunk as fuck, and sell some super catastrophers at the mall for 12 bucks a gram. This isn't rocket appliance here, boys.
For all I know this is valid scientific research. But I can't even be bothered to find out because potheads have stigmatized hemp. "Dude, do you know hemp is 85% more efficient biomass than bacon?" "You know that hemp fibers can be turned into inferior yet expensive paper, right?" "Hemp-o-lene, it's either hemp biofuel or something you jump on." Which all are quite obviously thin excuses to grow more "medicinal"* hemp.
And hemp is a pretty great material, but every time I see an article that talks about a new industrial use I can't help thinking it comes from the same people who giggle when they hear "420" and snerk when they mention how they're into 'hydroponics'.
Seriously folks, if you want me to take you (hemp or pot smokers) seriously you need to clean up your game. Don't smoke a bowl on April 20th, instead bring to my attention how we really don't know the medical properties of cannabis because of government overregulation (or whatever, anything that has real promise to someone who has no interest in smoking pot.)
*Medicine is sold at drug stores, not in shadowy places with a bouncer at the door and punny names like "Grass Roots Clinic" or "Foggy Daze Dispensary".
They're in short enough supply as it is and beer is far more important than nanosheets!
So since William Randolph Hearst demonized Hemp and forever tied to to Pot, it's been illegal to grow in the USA. You do realize that in most of the free world, you can walk into a grocery store and still buy products made from Coca leaf?
And yet in the "land of the free" almost everything is banned. Except guns. And you need those in case the government "takes away your rights". I hope you see the tremendous irony there.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I need my guns in case some stoners try to steal my hemp crop.
Have gnu, will travel.
Reminds me of a story from ITER (giant tokamak being built in the south of France), where they used low-tech coconut shells to solve a really high-tech problem. Sometimes Nature provides us with solutions that work better than anything man-made.
They need to build cryocoolers to remove helium and contaminants from the reactor, and the best material they've tested so far, came from burnt shells of coconuts imported from Indonesia. So the EU has been busy stockpiling enough coconuts to last the lifetime of ITER...
http://www.iter.org/newsline/116/1681
You could very easily engineer the THC out of the plant. I really wish one of the biotech companies would just do that... so that the next time we get one of these besides the point arguments we can just use that instead.
Understand, I want the drug legal. Its silly that pot is illegal. I see it the same as booze or tobacco. And I even think they're too heavily regulated. The taxes of Tobacco are too high and the regulations on Alchohol are too stiff. All of it needs to be relaxed to respect consent.
As to pot, I merely find it annoying that people keep telling me how amazing hemp fiber is when really it can't be that amazing. It can't be the only plant with those properties. And its beyond obvious why people keep bringing the damn plant up... its offensive. Every time I hear that it is an insult because the people making the argument are lying by omission.
Again... I have no problem with pot being legal. Legalize it. But talking about hemp oil, or hemp fiber, or nano whatever with hemp isn't going to legalize the drug. Its not relevant and it actually offends the few of us with working brains.
Just be honest about it. You don't need to trick people. And even if you did, this trick isn't going to work. If you insist on tricking us... come up with a better trick.
I'll finally say that I do not doubt that the scientists found these properties in hemp. I would suggest that there are likely many plants that can yield the same result. And even if there weren't which is extremely unlikely... the path of least resistance would be to simply engineer the THC out of the plant.
At this point, I'd just like the biotech companies to do that only because I find these dumb arguments by the legalization lobby to be tedious.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
If I overclock my CPU will it let off a nice aroma?
So, corporations controlling politicians and the media to further their own interests?
Same shit, different century :-(
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
Selective breeding ..... how about not enough research into the following statement?
``Only through selective breeding did they reduce the THC concentrations low enough that the plants couldn't be practically used for psychoactive contents.``
You don`t seem to understand that low THC Hemp existed in nature 1000`s of years ago and was in use for purposes other than getting stoned.
Low THC Hemp is an easy to care for crop that provides high protien seeds, and the bast can be made into a variety of very tough materials relatively easily as well.
If anything cultivation of high THC hemp was brought about by selective breeding.
I don`t mind the ``Pot is bad for you` mindset -- I just can`t stand the stupidity of not researching something for at least a few minutes.
Hi, anyone want to talk about something OTHER than the 'hemp' thing?
The science itself is pretty cool, if maybe a bit late. Like previous work with graphene, it works by puffing up ("exfoliating") laminar carbon stock so that it has an insane surface area - like activated carbon, but much moreso. This surface area is what allows for such high capacity in electric double layer ("super") capacitors.
"But graphene is still quite expensive to make", says the article. There's the rub - while this research is pitched as a way to avoid the expense of graphene, it was recently discovered you can make graphene in your kitchen.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Almost two hundred comments, and not one person has commented (that I saw) about how this might encourage engineers and users to start letting out the magic smoke on purpose.
Or maybe more like this magic smoke is REALLY magic.
Putting the magic in magic smoke.
etc...
* yes, I am quite aware that you are more likely to get cancer from putting your nose close to that super-cap when it blows than getting high, but the comment potential is still 'high'. *rimshot*
Hemp and marijuana are illegal in this country and as such they cannot be used in medical products, lest the company lose all goverment funding for doing so. Once again someone needs to wake up and smell the hemp, this plant could save this country 25 billion per year on finding and eradicating operations, 10-20 billion in prosecuting and housing, and god only knows the tax revenues (california gets 1.2 billion in sales tax) annually. Wake up and do something to create jobs and revenue for a failing economy.