Adding graphene to silly putty somehow creates a heart monitor

Scientists in Ireland have combined Silly Putty with a special form of carbon known as graphene to create an amazing new material they said might be useful in making medical devices, according to a new report in the journal Science.

Jonathan Coleman, a physicist at Trinity College, Dublin, told NPR that Silly Putty’s extraordinary properties are quite inspiring. For instance, it will bounce if formed into a ball.

“But if you pull it very, very slowly, it will flow as if it’s a liquid, a viscous liquid,” he said.

Made from boric acid and silicone oil, Silly Putty was developed by industrial scientists looking for rubber substitutes around 70 years ago. While the scientists were able to come up with a classic children’s toy, other uses proved to be quite evasive.

“It’s got these strange properties but it never really found an application. So we thought, if we could make it do something that would be cool,” Coleman said.

Combining Silly Putty with Wonder Material Graphene

The physicist said one of his students came up with the idea of trying to combine Silly Putty with graphene, made from sheets of carbon about an atom thick.

Combining graphene and Silly Putty creates a material that conducts electricity. The combined material also has pressure sensitivity. Applying just a small amount of pressure can modify its electrical resistance.

Coleman said the new putty, which is still runny and bouncy, has the potential for many applications. For instance, a person’s pulse and blood pressure can be measured by pressing a small bit of the putty against the carotid artery.

Graphene seems to be one of the most useful materials on the planet right now– we just can’t seem to make it in a cost-effective manner.

In May 2015, researchers published an article that showed a combination of graphene and spider silk could be spun into the strongest fiber known to man.

To create the material, researchers collected 15 Pholcidae spiders from the Italian countryside and kept them in controlled conditions. The team then gathered up the silk produced by these spiders as a reference and then sprayed the spiders with a mixture of water, carbon nanotubes and graphene.

The resulting silk that was produced was stronger than Kevlar – the bulletproof material invented by DuPont in the 1960s. Possible uses for the new fiber includes electronics, garment making, and medical devices like sutures, or even nerve regeneration.

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Image credit: Naoise Culhane/Amber Center, Trinity College Dublin

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