Researchers Create New Form Of Ice Using Graphene Sheets

Researchers have managed to create a new type of ice, something that results from using a couple sheets of graphene to flatten a drop of water. This is done on the microscopic level, and the new type of ice is called "square ice", referring to the square grid-like pattern of the atoms. The ice is created at room temperature, which makes it all the more notable, and follows an initial discovery made back in 2012 when a team of researchers noted that water vapor will pass through graphene oxide, but not helium gas or related gases.

The ice is formed at room temperature using pressure and sheets of graphene. The researchers made it by putting a microliter of water onto a graphene sheet, then they placed a second sheet of graphene on top of the water. The water started to evaporate, and the sheets were pressed together during this, leaving less than a nanometer between them. This left water trapped inside.

Those resulting pockets of water had square ice in them, a new form of ice. Though it is a new discovery, one researcher has said that it wasn't "totally unexpected". Previously, 17 other crystalline phases of ice have been observed, making this newest one number 18.

With regular ice, the bonds usually form a pyramid shape, but with this new one, they form squares with right angles, and they're flat. In order to make this happen, the researchers say the graphene sheets are causing in excess of 10,000 times atmospheric pressure.

SOURCE: Scientific American