Hydrogen production yields bucky diamonds

Hydrogen production yields bucky diamonds

There may not be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but there appears to be nanocrystalline diamonds at the end of a process to produce and store hydrogen using Anthracite coal, according to a recent report from azonano.com:

Interest in hydrogen as a vehicular fuel has many researchers investigating ways to create hydrogen inexpensively; other researchers are looking at ways to transport and store hydrogen in a safe manner. Penn State Assistant Professor Angela D. Lueking and her group were exploring a way to store hydrogen in carbon-based materials, and inadvertently stumbled upon a method that combines production and storage and produces nanocrystalline diamonds as a by-product.

What the researchers had were bucky diamonds, a nanocrystalline diamond surrounded by onion-like layers of graphite.

"Bucky diamonds are relatively unexplored in terms of applications," said Lueking. "Nanocrystalline diamonds, however, have major industrial uses as abrasives and in electronics." (photo NCSU)


Posted June 26th, 2006 in Materials.

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