Researchers have found a way to create high quality graphene from soybean oil. Their results have been published in Nature Communications.

With its thin composition and high conductivity, graphene could be used in applications ranging from miniaturized electronics to biomedical devices. However, the high cost of graphene production has been the major roadblock in its commercialization.

Now, scientists from CSIRO have developed a new technique that enables graphene to grow in ambient air, making its production faster and simpler. Called GraphAir, the method eliminates the need for a highly-controlled environment to grow films of graphene.

“This ambient-air process for graphene fabrication is fast, simple, safe, potentially scalable, and integration-friendly,” CSIRO scientist Dr. Zhao Jun Han, co-author of the paper said. “Our unique technology is expected to reduce the cost of graphene production and improve the uptake in new applications.”

GraphAir transforms soybean oil—a renewable, natural material—into graphene films in a single step. With heat, soybean oil breaks down into a range of carbon building units that are essential for the synthesis of graphene.

“Our GraphAir technology results in good and transformable graphene properties, comparable to graphene made by conventional methods,” CSIRO scientist and co-author of the study Dr. Dong Han Seo said. The team also transformed other types of renewable and even waste oil, such as those leftover from barbecues or cooking, into graphene films. “We can now recycle waste oils that would have otherwise been discarded and transform them into something useful,” Seo said.