2023 3M/Ronald A. Mitsch Lecture in Chemistry

Making Graphene and Cleaning the Environment in a Flash with Flash Joule Heating - April 21, 2023

Guest lecturer: James Tour, the T. T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Chemistry and professor of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice University

Dr. Tour will discuss using the flash Joule heating (FJH) process to convert carbon products into graphene in 100 milliseconds, using no solvents or water and an input of just $30 in electricity per ton of graphene, which has a commercial value of approximately $100,000. The process can be used on waste materials such as rubber, plastic, and food waste and is being scaled to ton-per-day production by summer. In addition, using this graphene for composites formation will be discussed, and a method of using natural gas for energy with zero CO2 emissions will be presented.

The FJH process can be used for urban mining electronics waste, obtaining rare earth elements from fly ash and bauxite residue, and one-step soil remediation of organics, perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and heavy metals.

For more information about Hamline University's Department of Chemistry, please visit https://www.hamline.edu/academics/und...