Carbon Nano-Onions are About to be a Big Deal

Don't let carbon nanotubes get all the hype! Carbon nano-onions might be the future of medicine and electronics and they just got much easier to make.

thumbnail: Takashi Shirai from NITech, Japan
by: Hank Green (he/him)

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No Nanodiamonds? Use Fish Scales!

[bemybff]

I feel like there was just one scientist that found a way to justify microwaving their fish in the breakroom on a regular basis

[matthewanderson]

This entire process sounds like a mad Lib

[microwaving] [fish scales] will make [carbon] [nano] [onions]

[.]

This makes me wonder how many things can be discovered by just microwaving random things

[theshuman]

this is absolutely one of those situation where one wonders where they stumble upon the idea to use fish scales. did they try and entire fish firs, or did they experiment with different parts of a fish seperately? how many species of fish did they went through to get there

[irvalfirestar]

Maybe the fullerenes/nano-onions were made easily in this case because of the geometry of the scale, or perhaps the scale’s color itself contains a bunch of graphene sheets to help the fishes appear black. Fish scales do help fishes swim better in most cases and because of that, scales from specific species may have microstructures or tiny grooves that are poorly documented before this. You can make buckyballs from plain graphene sheets after all, so introducing some very consistent microstructures to that atomic sheet may result in very consistent fullerene production.

[sechran]

"Oh, we created this miracle substance by microwaving fish" feels a lot like, "yeah, we fed our soldiers carrots until they could see in the dark."

[damoji]

today I learned nano onions does not mean very small onions

[dekumidoriya]

I love your videos, and how it's a fine mixture of fun and learning. Waiting for your next one !

[warriorscholar]

What are the odds this drops the week I'm telling my class about biomimicry? Seriously, I love you guys.

[bob_computer]

as a great man once said "Ogres are like onions"

[LeoAngora]

I don't know how an e-commerce platform is useful for the average viewer, but neither is onion nanotubes, so thanks for the great video

[Zappygunshot]

This episode is fun, but fails to answer one of the most important questions: if the scientists involved don't know why it works, how the heck did they come up with the idea to microwave black snapper fish scales? It's such a specific thing, there _has_ to be a good story behind it!

[SighKronmiller]

PETA is going to be really upset about all the naked fish!😮

[tomcurl]

I had never heard of nano onions before but this new method of creating them sounds like it’s relatively sustainable and I’m glad that scientist can study the better now because if we can figure out how to do cool stuff with them we can solve a lot of problems and solving problems is good

[aaaaaaaaaaa]

"It's a new kind of recycling!" So optimistic Hank

[matildamcgillicuddy]

What I want to know is why they put fish scales in the microwave in the first place.

[BobSmith-tmkj]

HANK! This is SUPER cool! :D Thank you for sharing! <3

[janetf]

"Fancy science microwaves" I like that👍

[kingmufasa]

I thought we are talking about actual onions here

[troyclayton]

Cool stuff, thanks. I know it's not specifically accurate, but everyone used to casually call graphene 'spheres' Buckyballs (even if they're not the actual Buckminsterfullerene). Carbon nanotubes? Buckytubes. It's certainly easier to say. What changed? Nesting Buckyballs is such an easy concept to convey.
edit: All "nano-onions" are properly called fullerenes. Great for chemists, but Buckyballs is a better common name.