Turning plastic into solid carbon is not easy. Heat the polymers to rearrange their carbon atoms, and they decompose into light hydrocarbons and gases. But researchers at the US National Energy ...

Soft, dark-gray graphite is not just useful in pencils: The highly conductive and heat-resistant mineral is uniquely suited for advanced manufacturing. Yet the United States imports nearly half of the ...

The ORNL method can even make graphite with waste from coal processing and old mines, creating value while performing environmental restoration. "We are very excited because we have found a way to ...

Lithium might be the new oil, but it’s just one of several materials needed to make the batteries powering today’s electric vehicles. There’s also cobalt, nickel and manganese, all of which have ...

Why it matters: Graphite is the largest component in lithium-ion batteries by weight. Accounting for losses during the manufacturing process, it takes over 30 times more graphite than lithium to make ...

Graphite is the most common, stable, crystalline form of carbon and has a wide variety of end uses in nuclear, automotive, and high-technology industries. For instance, in rechargeable lithium-ion (Li ...