MIT Researchers have proved that the natural resource “Coal” is more than just a fuel source, by successfully creating electronics components out of coal.
Even though coal has been one of the most widely used substances by human beings for centuries, its bulk electronic and optical properties had never really been studied for the purpose of advanced devices.
Traditionally, coal is looked at by the scientists as purely a raw material — something that needs to broken down to the atomic level for use in creating new chemicals and materials.
The MIT researchers have succeeded in making a simple electrical heating device that could be used for defrosting car windows or airplane wings, or as part of a biomedical implant. In developing this initial application, they have also for the first time characterized in detail the chemical, electrical, and optical properties of thin films of four different kinds of coal: anthracite, lignite, and two bituminous types.
The Research Team determined that unprocessed, natural coal varieties offer an impressive range of electrical conductivities. i-e It is versatile enough to meet variety of needs in electronics manufacturing.
While coal and other fossil fuels have long been used as feedstocks for the chemical industry, making everything from plastics to dyes and solvents, traditionally the material has been treated like other kinds of raw ore: something to be refined into its basic constituents, atoms, or simple molecules, which are then recombined to make the desired material. Using the chemistries that nature has provided, just as they are, is an unusual new approach. And the researchers found that by simply adjusting the temperature at which the coal is processed, they could tune many of the material’s optical and electrical properties to exactly the desired values.
The simple heating device the team made as a proof of principle provides an end-to-end demonstration of how to use the material, from grinding the coal, to depositing it as a thin film and making it into a functional electronic device. Now, they say, the doors are opened for a wide variety of potential applications through further research.
The big potential advantage of the new material, is its low cost stemming from the inherently cheap base material, combined with simple solution processing that enables low fabrication costs.
Coal could become the basis for solar panels, batteries, or electronic devices.
