Laser Etching Graphene Supercapacitors

The tech is nothing new, but did you know you can make your own graphene using your DVD burner? No seriously — all you need is a light-scribe compatible DVD burner and some graphite oxide.

It’s pretty simple. By placing a thin film on top of a DVD (or any plastic CD shaped disc), and coating it with graphite oxide, you can literally print patterns of graphene using the laser in your DVD burner. By making the shapes shown above, you can introduce an electrolyte and turn the whole thing into a supercapacitor. Albeit, a tiny super capacitor. But — you can print hundreds of them on a DVD in less than an hour.

We’ve covered this before a few times now, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting. We’re still waiting for someone (one of you guys!) to do a project that actually makes use of graphene! Hurry up!

[Thanks for the tip John!]