Dimming the lights will make it easier to see the LED glowing. Try touching the bent leg of the LED to different places on the graphite line. You will notice that the closer the bent leg is to the black crocodile clip, the brighter the diode glows. Don't be afraid to experiment!
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If none of the above worked, try another diode from the experiment set.
Finally, if the diode still doesn&#;t light up, apply an additional layer of the mixture, retracing the first line. Make the line thick, with no gaps.
Next, double-check that the wires are connected properly. The red crocodile clip should be connected to the long straight leg of the diode, while the black clip should be connected to the edge of the paper, touching the graphite line. Make sure the crocodile clips are clamped to the metal, not the insulation.
First, make sure that the batteries have been properly inserted into the battery holder. If everything has been set up correctly but the LED still isn&#;t working, try changing the batteries.
It is important that your line start at one edge of the sheet; the black crocodile clip needs to be able to connect to the graphite line. The line should be unbroken from start to finish.
As you can see, your drawing conducts electricity quite well, but the longer and thinner the path connecting the "-" crocodile clip with the "-" LED leg, the worse the connection is. That's because the liquid wire has quite high electrical resistance. Regular metal wires also have electrical resistance, but it's much, much lower. If your wire were made of copper, you'd need a really long piece of it to dim your LED as much as a mere couple of inches of the liquid wire does.
Connect the black "-" crocodile clip to your conductive drawing and touch your drawing elsewhere with the bent "-" leg of your LED.
Attach the longer "+" leg of an LED to your battery holder. You can also use the batteries you make in the other experiment from this set.
To make liquid wires, you need to mix graphite with liquid glass. It's actually the graphite that conducts electricity&#;the liquid glass simply helps keep the graphite powder together in a thick paste.
Every electronic household appliance relies on an electrical system: to work, it needs an electric current flowing through it. For current to be able to flow through such a device, it needs a good conductor &#; a material that transmits electricity well. These conductors are usually metal wires, as metal wires can easily transfer electrons (tiny negatively-charged particles) from one place to another and circulate electricity through the appliance.
But metals aren&#;t the only materials that can transmit electricity well! Graphite can also act as a conductor. This experiment revolves around mixing graphite with sodium silicate Na2xSiyO2y+x solution, also known as liquid glass.
Even a small graphite stripe or pencil mark can conduct electricity, but such &#;wires&#; are not thick enough to be good conductors. The liquid glass acts as a glue that both thickens the liquid wire and helps the graphite fragments stick to each other. Touching the diode to this wire closes the electric system, and the diode glows as electric current flows through the circuit.
This mixture can be transferred onto any flat surface, but it must always be continuous &#; the system should be closed with a single touch of the diode!
Graphite is made of carbon atoms, and carbon is a non-metal. So how can it act as a conductor?
Graphite can act as a conductor thanks to its unique layered structure, which gives its electrons the opportunity to move more freely than they otherwise would. This structure is very important &#; diamonds, which are also made up of carbon atoms, cannot act as conductors because they aren&#;t constructed this way!
Interestingly, graphite&#;s conductivity also depends on the direction the electric current is moving: current can flow along graphite layers thousands of times more easily than perpendicularly to them.
Wires are primarily made of metals due to their superior conductivity. Silver is the best conductor of all the metals, but its high price limits it to select applications within electronics. It and gold are used as contacts in toggle switches and tiny microchip wires. Copper is common in home electrical systems, but its price and mediocre tension resistance can be problematic at larger scales; power lines have wires made of cheaper steel, compromising slightly in terms of heat loss.
Some electroconductive glues contain silver particles &#; when the glue dries, the layer becomes conductive. They are used to fix some electric circuits, like car window heaters, where you can't change the wires. Sometimes metal isn't present in the solution in its metallic form, but rather is dispersed as ions. The metal layer is then forced to precipitate from the liquid using chemicals or even lasers. This might seem overly elaborate or exotic, but you hold a device made like this in your hands every day &#; your smartphone! The antenna in your smartphone was likely made exactly this way: at some point, metal ions were deposited on a plastic component to form a solid metal coating capable of capturing radio waves.
Graphite&#;s unique ability to conduct electricity while dissipating or transferring heat away from critical components makes it a great material for electronics applications including semiconductors, electric motors, and even the production of modern day batteries.
1. Nanotechnology and Semiconductors
As devices and electronics are becoming smaller and smaller, carbon nanotubes are becoming the norm, and they are proving to be the future of nanotechnology and the semiconductor industry [13].
Graphene is what scientists and engineers call a single layer of graphite at the atomic level, and these thin layers of graphene are being rolled-up and used in nanotubes [14]. This is likely due to the impressive electrical conductivity and the material&#;s exceptional strength and stiffness.
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Today&#;s carbon nanotubes are constructed with a length-to-diameter ratio of up to 132,000,000:1, which is significantly larger than any other material [15]. Besides being used in nanotechnology, which is still rather new in the world of semiconductors, it should be noted that most graphite manufacturers have been making specific grades of graphite for the semiconductor industry for decades.
2. Electric Motors, Generators and Alternators
Carbon graphite material is also frequently used in electric motors, generators, and alternators in the form of carbon brushes. In this case a &#;brush&#; is a device that conducts current between stationary wires and a combination of moving parts, and it is usually housed in a rotating shaft [18].
3. Ion Implantation
Graphite is now being used with more frequency in the electronics industry. It is being used in ion implantation, thermocouples, electrical switches, capacitors, transistors, and batteries too.
Ion implantation is an engineering process where ions of a particular material are accelerated in an electrical field and are impacted into another material, as a form of impregnation. It is one of the fundamental processes used in the production of microchips for our modern computers, and graphite atoms are typically one of the types of atoms that are infused into these silicon based microchips [19].
Besides graphite&#;s unique role in the production of microchips, graphite based innovations are now being used to replace traditional capacitors and transistors as well. According to some researchers, graphene may be a possible alternative to silicon altogether. It is 100 times thinner than the smallest silicon transistor, conducts electricity much more efficiently, and has exotic properties that can be very useful in quantum computing [20]. Graphene has also been used in modern capacitors too. In fact, graphene supercapacitors are supposedly 20x times more powerful than traditional capacitors (releasing 20 W/cm3), and they may be 3x times stronger than today&#;s high-powered, lithium-ion batteries [21].
4. Batteries
When it comes to batteries (dry cell and lithium-Ion), carbon and graphite materials have been instrumental here too. In the case of a traditional dry-cell (the batteries we often use in our radios, flashlights, remotes, and watches), a metal electrode or graphite rod (the cathode) is surrounded by a moist electrolyte paste, and both are encapsulated within a metal cylinder [22].
Today&#;s modern lithium-ion batteries are using graphite too &#; as an anode. Older lithium-ion batteries used traditional graphite materials, however now that graphene is becoming more readily available, graphene anodes are now being used instead &#; mostly for two reasons; 1. graphene anodes hold energy better and 2. it promises a charge time that is 10x times faster than a traditional lithium-ion battery [24].
Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are becoming more and more popular these days. They are now often used in our home appliances, portable electronics, laptops, smart phones, hybrid electric cars, military vehicles, and in aerospace applications too.
Sources
[13] Tredenick, Nick. &#;3 Ways Nanotechnology is Impacting Semiconductors.&#; Advanced MP
Technology. Online Article. Accessed 1 May .
http://www.advancedmp.com/nanotechnology-semiconductors/[14] &#;Carbon Nanotubes.&#; Wikipedia Online Encylopedia. Accessed 1 May .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_nanotube#cite_note-Longest-1[15] Wang, X; Li, Qunqing; Xie, Jing; Jin, Zhong; Wang, Jinyong. &#;Fabrication of Ultralong and Electrically Uniform Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube on Clean Substrates&#;. Nano Letters, 9 (9): - ().
[18] &#;Electric Motor Brushes.&#; Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia. Accessed 1 May
. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brush_(electric)[19] &#;Ion Implantation in Semiconductor Manufacturing &#; Using Graphite and Refractory Metals to Improve System Reliability.&#; AZO Materials. Online Article. Accessed 1 May
.
http://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=[20] Palmer, Jason. &#;Graphite Pencilled In To Replace Silicon Transistors.&#; The New Scientist. Online Article (9 January ). Accessed 1 May .
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg-300-graphite-pencilledin-to-replace-silicon-transistors/[21] Anthony, Sebastian. &#;Graphene Supercapacitors Are 20 Times As Powerful.&#; Extreme Technology News. Online Article (19 March ). Accessed 1 May .
www.extremetech.com/extreme/-graphene-supercapacitors-are-20-times-as-powerful-can-be-made-with-a-dvd-burner[22] &#;The Dry-Cell Battery.&#; University of Hawaii,Department of Chemistry. Online Article. Accessed 1 May .
http://makahiki.kcc.hawaii.edu/chem/everyday_battery.html[24] Buchmann, Isidor. &#;How Does Graphite Work in Li-ion Batteries.&#; Battery University. Online Article (). Accessed 1 May .
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