Hasta La Ideas

Planes, trains, automobiles, structures, tools, hardware, cameras, machinery, weapons, appliances—these are all things you can design, and they’re all things that can rust. The simple curse of the oxidation process has given birth to entire industries that attempt to treat, prevent and halt this damaging process. It’s something scientists have been working on with some success but certainly not anywhere close to the scale of what researchers at Rice University are proposing.

You’ve seen us post about graphene before, and you’ll see us post about it again. Because this one-atom thick layer of graphite, which rocked scientists’ world more than a decade ago, is the new superstar of material science. It will be everywhere, as ubiquitous as glass or steel, and its uses will be beyond our imagination. But the application for graphene that’s currently coming into focus is the prevention of rust.

Scientists at Rice have created “white graphene” using thin sheets of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). It’s basically a sheet of atoms that look a lot like chicken wire. And it can protect pretty much any material from rusting. It’s been tested in temperatures as high as 2,012° F. It’s thin, light and invisible. It could be used for anything from delicate electronics or photonics, for example, protecting solar cells from humidity, heat and water.

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