Scientists at the university have enhanced their laser-induced graphene (LIG) technique and is investigating ways to write graphene patterns onto food and other materials.
The idea is that the team will be able to quickly embed conductive identification tags and sensors into the products themselves.
“This is not ink,” James Tour of the Rice lab, said. “This is taking the material itself and converting it into graphene.”
The Tour lab has previously turned Girl Scout cookies into graphene and this development is an extension of the lab’s contention that anything with the proper carbon content can be turned into graphene. In recent years, the lab has developed and expanded upon its method to make graphene foam by using a commercial laser to transform the top layer of an inexpensive polymer film.
The foam consists of microscopic, cross-linked flakes of graphene, the two-dimensional form of carbon. According to the team, LIG can be written into target materials in patterns and used for applications such as a supercapacitor, an electrocatalyst for fuel cells, radio-frequency identification antennas (
