Nanomaterial breakthrough unlocks electronic and energy technologies

Funded by the Science Foundation Ireland, the scientists invented a method for creating these atomically thin nanosheets from a range of materials using common solvents and ultrasound, utilising devices similar to those used to clean jewellery. The research was led by the Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices (CRANN), the School of Physics in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and the University of Oxford. The findings have been published in the journal Science. According to Professor Coleman at CRANN, pictured left, who led the research, the new method is simple, fast, inexpensive and could be scaled up to work on an industrial scale. "Of the many possible applications of these new nanosheets, perhaps the most important are as thermoelectric materials. These materials, when fabricated into devices, can generate electricity from waste heat," said Coleman. "For example, in gas fired power plants, approximately 50% of energy produced is lost as waste heat while for coal and oil plants the figure is up to 70%. However, the development of efficient thermoelectric devices would allow some of this waste heat to be recycled cheaply and easily, something that has been beyond us up until now." For decades researchers have tried to create nanosheets from layered materials in order to unlock their unusual electronic and thermoelectric properties. However, previous methods proved time consuming, laborious and unsuited to most applications. Prof Coleman believes this new work will open up over 150 similarly exotic layered materials - such as Boron Nitride, Molybdenum disulfide and Bismuth telluride - that have the potential to be metallic, semiconducting or insulating, depending on their chemical composition and how their atoms are arranged. "This new range of materials will open up a whole world of new 'super' materials," he said. The findings could also pave the way for next generation batteries called supercapacitors, which can deliver energy thousands of times faster than standard batteries, enabling new applications such as electric cars. Because the atomic layered materials are so strong, they can also be added to plastics to produce super strong composites – providing advances in a range of industries from simple structural plastics to aeronautics.