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Hemp Fibers Make Better Supercapacitors Than Graphene
biodata (1981610) writes "BBC News is reporting findings published in the journal ACS Nano by Dr David Mitlin from Clarkson University. Dr. Mitlin's team took waste hemp stems and recycled the material into supercapacitors with performance as good, or better, than those built from graphene, at a fraction of the raw materials cost. "We're making graphene-like materials for a thousandth of the price - and we're doing it with waste. The hemp we use is perfectly legal to grow. It has no THC in it at all - so there's no overlap with any recreational activities," Mitlin says.
What about basket weavers, you insensitive clod!
Which is nuts, actually. Hemp is a brilliant raw material with hundreds of practical uses which *should*, if people had any sense of balance, far outweigh the small issue of the cannabinoids. It could probably even be selectively bred to eliminate that aspect, but no, concern about a few potheads sends legislators into a tailspin. This is why we can't have nice things.
Hemp is overrated
Clever stoners have built this huge mythology around the industrial value of hemp. It is a good fiber but it isn't the miracle material you've been trained to think it is. We've had no problem discovering suitable and better alternatives for every conceivable use of hemp and if industrial hemp is ever available in bulk I doubt more than a few of these will actually be displaced. A few maybe, but if it competes with other crops for cultivated land it won't be cheap, so it won't be the first choice.
It would be great if hemp were able to produce excellent supercapacitors beyond the lab. We could begin replacing our fleet of gas cars with electrics and build feasible energy storage for renewables. Unfortunately the same mentality that takes all the hemp hype as gospel also believes that we don't have these things because Big Oil and Big Coal — so I guess hemp supercapactors aren't going to help anyhow. Right?
AC because poking at the millennial world view is bad for karma.
Hemp can't replace marijuana, but I'm pretty sure marijuana can replace hemp.
there's more to it than just Mary Jane. You don't think the cotton lobby has noticed the wonder material that is hemp?...
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You wouldn't want to though. Your marijuana plants would end up getting cross-pollinated and the quality would go to hell. No one would want to buy the crap. That and cultivating the plants indoors in a more controlled environment is going to provide a much better yield.
The pro pot crowd points to Washington and hemp so they can point out how stupid our marijuana laws are, because these laws, in banning marijuana, also ban hemp, even though hemp does suck for getting high. It's a versatile and useful plant (but not for smoking), good for making rope, paper, clothing, etc., but we can't have it because of these stupid pot laws.
1/700,000 has an adverse reaction to marajuana
how many people in the US can die from eating a peanut? almost no non-essential substance is innocuous to everyone.