Eco Factor: Super-high pressures help in developing material that can store great amount of energy.
Scientists at the Washington State University have succeeded in developing a material that can store vast amounts of energy. The compact, never-before-seen material is a result of using super-high pressures similar to those found deep in the Earth. It was created in a diamond anvil cell, a small, two-inch by three-inch-diameter device that can produce extremely high pressures in a small space.
Xenon difluoride (XeF2), a white crystal used to etch silicon conductors, squeezed between two small diamond anvils makes up the cell. The material’s molecules that stay relatively far apart at normal atmospheric pressure start coming closer as the pressure increases. Initially at increasing the pressure, the material became a two-dimensional graphite-like semiconductor, but at 50 GPa, the he XeF2 transforms into a reddish two-dimensional graphite-like hexagonal layered structure of semiconducting XeF4.
At pressures comparable to what would be found halfway to the center of the earth, the molecules were squeezed to make tightly bound three-dimensional metallic network structures. The enormous of compressed amount of mechanical energy was stored as chemical energy in the molecules’ bonds. The researchers claim that the material holds great potential for developing a new class of energetic materials or fuels, an energy storage device, super-oxidizing materials for destroying chemical and biological agents, and high temperature superconductors.
Via: Gizmag
