Overwhelmed by the available chemistry resources? Looking for new chemistry teaching ideas? Elementary Articles is the place for chemistry, education, and everything else.

Elementary Articles is the official blog for the RSC's Learn Chemistry – your home for chemistry education resources and activities.

New Graphene Video is a gogo!

Learn Chemistry has a new video all about graphene: future applications!

Made in conjunction with the Banks Group from Manchester Metropolitan University, the video is just under 10 minutes long and covers different types of carbon, making graphite, the properties of graphite, the uses of graphite, and making a solar cell. There is a contents page at the start with the timings for each section in case teachers want to just use smaller chunks of it.

From the introduction of a burnt sausage(!), the idea that carbon looks very different depending on the bonding between the atoms is explained. The star of our video, Dale, goes on to demonstrate how students themselves can try to make graphene. After listing the properties, Dale talks about how these properties can be applied to novel uses. The end of the video shows how it is possible to make your own solar cell - expanding on one of the possible uses for graphene.

There are related materials linked to the video including a Gridlocks game on allotropes of carbon and the anecdote on the discovery of buckminsterfullerene.

I hope it will show where a discovery awarded a Nobel prize a only a couple of years ago can be used in everyday life.




Posted by Alexandra Kersting on Oct 25, 2012 1:49 PM Europe/London

Share this |

Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linked More...

Leave a comment?

You must be signed in to leave a comment on MyRSC blogs.

Register free for an account at http://my.rsc.org/registration.

Comments