Mix of Graphene With ‘Silly Putty’ Yields Extremely Sensitive Sensor

Monday, December 12th, 2016

Mixing graphene — a material made of single-atom-thick layers of carbon — with homemade “Silly Putty” produces a sensor so sensitive that it can detect the tiny footsteps of spiders:

Dr. Coleman’s lab has a long tradition of incorporating household products into nanotechnology research. For instance, they have made graphene using a kitchen blender. The idea of mixing graphene with silly putty came from one of Dr. Coleman’s students. He greenlit the project, thinking it would be a good outreach tool. The material turned out to have unusual and interesting properties.

Silly Putty manufacturer Crayola didn’t respond to a request for comment.

To do their tests, the scientists hooked up their G-putty using wires to a recording device. When pressure is applied—by a spider’s walking or a heart’s pulsing—they showed G-putty’s resistance, or ability to conduct electricity, changed in a measurable way, giving scientists the “basis of a sensor,” according to Dr. Coleman. G-putty, he says, is about 10 times as sensitive as other similar technologies. (In a wearable, it would be connected to some sort of battery, he said.)

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