ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | MAY 2026 1 1 PROCESS TECHNOLOGY PEANUT SHELLS FUEL GRAPHENE PRODUCTION Researchers at UNSW Sydney, Australia, discovered a new way to make graphene using only discarded peanut shells. They say the develop- ment could lead to cheaper, more sustainable electronics and energy storage devices by transforming this agricultural waste into specialized parts for phones and computers. The team’s first breakthrough was recognizing that peanut shells are packed Technology (KAIST) are bringing the idea of traditional sandpaper into the realm of nanotechnology by creating a new technique capable of uniformly processing semiconductor surfaces down to the atomic level. This is vital because the performance and stability of smartphones and artificial intelligence services depend on how precisely semiconductor surfaces are polished. The new method demonstrates the potential to significantly improve surface quality in advanced semiconductor processes such as high-bandwidth memory. The research team developed a “nano sandpaper” that uses carbon nanotubes as abrasive materials, enabling more precise surface finishing than existing semi-conductor manufacturing processes such as chemical mechanical polishing. By vertically aligning carbon nanotubes, setting them inside polyurethane, and partially exposing them on the surface, they implemented the new sandpaper. The material developed in this study achieves an abrasive density approximately 500,000 times higher than that of the finest commercially available sandpaper. While traditional sandpaper typically ranges from 40 to 3000 grit, the nano sandpaper exceeds 1,000,000,000 grit. Through this extremely dense structure, surfaces could be processed with precision down to several nanometers—the thickness of only a few atoms. www.kaist.ac.kr. with lignin, a naturally occurring plant polymer that contains significant carbon. This gave them the idea to grind up the shells and use a series of heat treatments to unlock their potential for graphene production. The first step involves heating the shells to around 500°C for five minutes to remove impurities and convert them into a carbon-rich char material. The second step subjects the char to what is known as flash joule heating, in which a flash of electricity rapidly raises the temperature of the material to around 3000°C for just a few milliseconds. This enormous heat energy instantaneously rearranges the carbon atoms into single layers of graphene. Current graphene production methods traditionally include carbon black at this stage, an industrial chemical based on fossil fuels. The new method uses only the peanut-shell-derived char, making it more environmentally friendly. Overall, the new process can be completed in around 10 minutes, requiring substantially lower energy than commercial methods in use today. The team’s calculations indicate that a kilogram of graphene can be produced using their new technique at a cost of just $1.30 in energy. www.unsw.edu.au. NANO SANDPAPER FOR SEMICONDUCTOR SURFACES Scientists at the Korea Advanced Insti- tute of Science and Norman Noble, Highland Heights, Ohio, will open a rapid prototype facility in Irvine, Calif. The new location will expand the company’s ability to support early-stage development and rapid prototyping while strengthening collaboration with medical device OEMs across the Western U.S. nnoble.com. BRIEF Small quantities of high-quality graphene have been produced via a new process that uses waste peanut shells. Courtesy of Guan Yeoh/UNSW. Photograph (left) of VACNT nano sandpaper (scale bar: 1 cm) and scanning electron microscopy image of the surface (right) at microscale (scale bar: 100 µm). Courtesy of KAIST.
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