Carbon Nano-Onions are About to be a Big Deal

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Don't let carbon nanotubes get all the hype! Carbon nano-onions might be the future of medicine and electronics and they just got much easier to make.
thumbnail: Takashi Shirai from NITech, Japan
by: Hank Green (he/him)
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Sources:
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www.sciencedirect.com/science...
www.sciencedirect.com/topics/...
www.britannica.com/science/gr...
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
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www.sfu.ca/phys/346/121/resour...
iopscience.iop.org/article/10...
• 【Research】Fabrication ...
www.gettyimages.com/detail/vi...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
royalsocietypublishing.org/do...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
www.gettyimages.com/detail/ph...
www.gettyimages.com/detail/ph...
www.eurekalert.org/multimedia...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
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No Nanodiamonds? Use Fish Scales!

[@bemybff205]

I feel like there was just one scientist that found a way to justify microwaving their fish in the breakroom on a regular basis

[@golddee2040]

Hahahahahahaha. You know it!

[@meisteremm]

"I hate my coworkers. From now on, the break room is going to smell like fish. See if they like it!"

[@elainebelzDetroit]

@@meisteremm And glow blue.

[@Borsuk3344]

@@meisteremm I wish it was only a break room that smells bad when someone microwaves a fish.

[@roxaskinghearts]

Boo bad joke

[@matthewanderson7824]

This entire process sounds like a mad Lib [microwaving] [fish scales] will make [carbon] [nano] [onions]

[@elainebelzDetroit]

Best comment yet.

[@WanderTheNomad]

Science!

[@calabrais]

Loll 😂😂💀

[@1.4142]

This makes me wonder how many things can be discovered by just microwaving random things

[@Direblade11]

It has been deleted, but there used to be a channel called something along the lines of, "Is it a good idea to microwave that?" In one of the videos, the college/Uni aged dude nearly blew himself up immediately. He just barely was able to get behind a door.

[@willichtenstein7071]

Will it blend? Was on to something?

[@SCDarkSoul]

@@Direblade11 It's not deleted, just renamed. The episodes are still very easily searchable. The playlist for all of them: kzbin.info/aero/PLU4IMu04MIlJgB6Aaj07q-5iXuHGVzFAR

[@LiamRappaport]

@@Direblade11 do you recall what he microwaved in that video?

[@nanchoparty]

Didn't a Russian hoax exist where a guy microwaved an egg he, uh... self-fertilized?

[@sechran]

"Oh, we created this miracle substance by microwaving fish" feels a lot like, "yeah, we fed our soldiers carrots until they could see in the dark."

[@damoji5332]

today I learned nano onions does not mean very small onions

[@thend4427]

Lol

[@oddmann8875]

The thumbnail was kinda bait. Was hoping for an actuall onion

[@wheres.wolfgang]

I mean it does, you just have to adjust your definition of “onion”

[@hannahbrown2728]

Oh but they are though. I reject this reality and substitute my own!

[@jsonharle]

This😂😂😂

[@theshuman100]

this is absolutely one of those situation where one wonders where they stumble upon the idea to use fish scales. did they try and entire fish firs, or did they experiment with different parts of a fish seperately? how many species of fish did they went through to get there

[@Xandycane]

Probably someone had scales after cleaning his fish and thought, I wonder...

[@theshuman100]

@@Xandycane them using kitchen scraps does explain why they tried tomato

[@Xandycane]

@@theshuman100 Next was the mayo that went bad.

[@Greymyster]

I'd have said it's probably something to do with fish scales being a waste product so they'd be cheap and pretty widely available, although that's a boring answer. I'd like to know whether, like, hair and nail clippings would work as well, i.e. could my own personal waste products in fact be valuable inputs for the manufacture of carbon nano-onions? :D

[@roxaskinghearts]

118 elements 3 states of matter and then space and time see what modern day people fail to realize we are explaining everything more easier when we can break it down with our data sets and the history of our science causality when your someone able to play with all the cutting edge science you understand things on a fundamental level higher then most a microscope that you can zoom in and look around via a computer with speed accuracy and intent big data in this modern day the people who dont realize this are the people who are at the bottom of the economy kids basically who work at mc donalds

[@bob_computer8279]

as a great man once said "Ogres are like onions"

[@Mister_Sun.]

carbonated shrek

[@NoNameAtAll2]

it wasn't great man it was great ogre

[@bearwynn]

@@Mister_Sun. like putting vomit in a soda stream

[@colbyr7811]

Ogres are like onions, I want them inside of me.

[@irvalfirestar6265]

Maybe the fullerenes/nano-onions were made easily in this case because of the geometry of the scale, or perhaps the scale’s color itself contains a bunch of graphene sheets to help the fishes appear black. Fish scales do help fishes swim better in most cases and because of that, scales from specific species may have microstructures or tiny grooves that are poorly documented before this. You can make buckyballs from plain graphene sheets after all, so introducing some very consistent microstructures to that atomic sheet may result in very consistent fullerene production.

[@Zappygunshot]

This episode is fun, but fails to answer one of the most important questions: if the scientists involved don't know why it works, how the heck did they come up with the idea to microwave black snapper fish scales? It's such a specific thing, there _has_ to be a good story behind it!

[@sevret313]

You just try a lot of carbon sources till you find something that works.

[@xostler]

“I wonder moments” I imagine it goes like this: you’re preparing dinner, after running carbon-microwave experiments all day, and just think to yourself “huh, food has a lot of carbon I wonder…” Same stuff kids do or at least I did as a kid. “Huh electricity shocks metal I wonder what happens when there’s a hairpin in the socket?”

[@RichOrElse]

Coz, why not?

[@alvaroardiles8079]

My guess is a boring answer: they were trying different carbon sources, and industrial food waste fits that bill AND it's bound to be cheap to buy in bulk.

[@johnappleseed6355]

I guess it’s the “welp, let’s see what happens” kinda motive.

[@SighKronmiller]

PETA is going to be really upset about all the naked fish!😮

[@warriorscholar41]

What are the odds this drops the week I'm telling my class about biomimicry? Seriously, I love you guys.

[@janetf23]

"Fancy science microwaves" I like that👍

[@youngmasterzhi]

Well, microwaves did originate from a power experimental radar apparatus that accidentally melted a researcher’s chocolate bar, so….

[@kingmufasa9706]

I thought we are talking about actual onions here

[@awsumaustin7650]

We arent?

[@Mrbeat-88]

It's the future Morty

[@Mister_Sun.]

there like onions just not similar to shek

[@matildamcgillicuddy3935]

What I want to know is why they put fish scales in the microwave in the first place.

[@meisteremm]

To make the room smell like fish forever.

[@matildamcgillicuddy3935]

@@meisteremm 🤣

[@StYxXx]

I wonder what else they mocrowaved

[@sevret313]

The video explains this, they experimented with different carbon sources. Essentially throw stuff at the wall till it sticked.

[@simongross3122]

@@StYxXx They tried buffalo poo, but that didn't work out so well.

[@LeoAngora]

I don't know how an e-commerce platform is useful for the average viewer, but neither is onion nanotubes, so thanks for the great video

[@yeeturmcbeetur8197]

Ogre. Onions. Carbon. Fish. I’m losing it. LOSING IT.

[@Ishykai]

It's like that alchemy game where you just combine stuff to make new elements/material. The early ones are intuitive like making steam with fire and water but once you get far enough, I guess you just have to start microwaving fish.

[@mikemondano3624]

We've already made gold out of lead, and one chemist made a silk purse out of a sow's ear. What else is there?

[@Ishykai]

@@mikemondano3624 apparently Carbon nano onions. That's what I mean. Just weird stuff. Start hitting everything with radiation and see what it makes. Take all our technology or processes and combine them with new things, like the game, and see the results.

[@mikemondano3624]

@@Ishykai Depends on what kind of "radiation". And they only absorb quanta if they have those energy levels, so random irradiation would be a waste of time and energy.

[@Ishykai]

@@mikemondano3624 I think you're taking the comment a little too literally my guy. It's a joke about how this is reminiscent of a game where you mix stuff to create new stuff to mix more stuff lol.

[@dekumidoriya7583]

I love your videos, and how it's a fine mixture of fun and learning. Waiting for your next one !

[@dekumidoriya7583]

THANKS!!!!

[@chuchu9649]

That shrek reference was unsolicited 😂

[@aaaaaaaaaaa5820]

"It's a new kind of recycling!" So optimistic Hank

[@maythesciencebewithyou]

Way too optimistic. This would only lead to more exploitation of the oceans if it became a thing.

[@brian1204]

Very interesting find, but with ocean fish stocks already stressed, I would hate for this to cause another run on them.

[@elainebelzDetroit]

I know - my first thought was, Hey, let's agree not to drive this fish into extinction...at least for a little while?

[@thelaw3536]

If successful would probably lead to massive fish farms.

[@clarehidalgo]

​@@elainebelzDetroit If only they could use the scales of the invasive carp in the MIssissipi

[@Marewig]

​@@thelaw3536 was my first thought too. Aquaculture is pretty developed around the world, might as well try all the varied species of fish we've been farming well all this. time.

[@debbiehenri345]

If these scales turn out to be much more efficient at producing LED light using less energy - then it will be in the industry's best interests to have a fish breeding program so they never run out.

[@tomcurl8034]

I had never heard of nano onions before but this new method of creating them sounds like it’s relatively sustainable and I’m glad that scientist can study the better now because if we can figure out how to do cool stuff with them we can solve a lot of problems and solving problems is good

[@smergthedargon8974]

It does sound very useful and sustainable - what the else were we gonna do with fish scales?

[@salohcinuno1192]

Fish are sustainable? Last I heard China overfishes so much they have fewer and fewer species to catch. That doesn't sound sustainable at all.

[@ezraclark7904]

You can't stop me from making carbon nano-onions into the new molecular gastronomy trend

[@luisostasuc8135]

I once wondered if buckeballs could be used to trap uranium, or certain heavy metals for armor. Good to see that onions can be used for medicine

[@troyclayton]

Cool stuff, thanks. I know it's not specifically accurate, but everyone used to casually call graphene 'spheres' Buckyballs (even if they're not the actual Buckminsterfullerene). Carbon nanotubes? Buckytubes. It's certainly easier to say. What changed? Nesting Buckyballs is such an easy concept to convey. edit: All "nano-onions" are properly called fullerenes. Great for chemists, but Buckyballs is a better common name.

[@ohnoitsalobo]

"Damn, that scientist got (bucky)balls"

[@ericdamexican]

Nerd...

[@2MeterLP]

How is that a better name? "Carbon nano-onions" sounds a little silly but tells me what they are made of, their rough size and their structure. "Nesting Buckyballs" doesnt tell me anything.

[@RevCode]

I have never heard of Buckyballs before.

[@jdsd744]

@@2MeterLP only because you do not get the reference.

[@AwkwardKidAdventures]

I'd never heard of "molecular onions" before, and definitely thought it was just some fancy way of talking about really thin slices of onion or something. >_>

[@bobby_greene]

I thought it was some sort of molecular gastronomy

[@ClaytonEvans56]

What would be the difference between these and Buckyballs? I assume its that these are a multilayer version of them similar to nano-tubes vs multi-wall nano-tubes. Though I thought Buckyballs were just any spherical nano material, which can vary in diameter. We looked at them in Uni where you could determine their size based on the color of the solution, as they reflect different wavelengths based on the size. Also that they can be any material, just that carbon gives the cleanest/most unitform atomic structure.

[@firewoman7722]

Wow, bizarre & cool, but always entertaining & educational!

[@Trioptic3D]

The thing I hate about nano onions is they make me shed nano tears.

[@BobSmith-tm2kj]

HANK! This is SUPER cool! :D Thank you for sharing!

[@philipwest4553]

Non-toxic, you said; are they easily broken down or do they persist like nano-plastics and could they cause medical and/or environmental problems in large quantities?

[@Bleepbleepblorbus]

Obviously not, that's what non toxic means

[@tool8337]

That was a fantastic video. Feels like old scishow!

[@hughcaldwell1034]

Well, I'd never heard of these things before today but now I'm bloody excited.

[@robertvasquez4564]

"Microwaving" Fish scales to get nano-onions reminds me of when scotch tape was used to pull graphene from graphite

[@bradmitchell7182]

One time at my local college library, we had a free to use microwave. A homeless person decided one day that he could heat up his fish that he caught from the nearby pond. It smelled horrible. But kinda funny now to think that he made carbon onions. The microwave was thrown out & not replaced.

[@FireKeepersDaddy]

You Handsome Boy Hank

[@heavyjunkops]

Fancy Science Microwave is my favorite phrase from this video.

[@ChrisHarmon1]

Would be interesting to see what the world looks like say 100 years after creating molecular printers.

[@alien9279]

I want a fancy science microwave, carbon onions sound delicious 😋

[@elainebelzDetroit]

Might be a bit fishy, though.

[@twocvbloke]

They must shed tears when they have to cut up those onions... :P

[@AL-fl4jk]

Nano chemistry proving my love of onions in all forms

[@averageyoutubechannel3980]

Random scientist: YO HEAR ME OUT,LETS MICROWAVE FISH SCALES

[@theninja4137]

Can't wait to tell my T1D friend that in a few years/decades he might have nano onions made from microwaved fish in his arm

[@oisinmurphy8242]

So interesting to think about how many uses may not have been conceptualized yet

[@RiversInTheSky.]

“They microwaved fish scales!” Fish: oh no Sustainability and animal lovers: oh no The fish industry: oh yes Me: before my food gets cold, let me look at it under a microscope

[@glenw3814]

In other news; Why black snapper is on the cafeteria menu at every research institute.

[@SuLokify]

We played with these in school. They have some really neat recoil properties

[@LucretiusDraco]

Hopefully they’ll find a source for their carbon nano-onions that is actually sustainable

[@thomashughes_teh]

Am I the only one who wants to see what a nano-onion the size of a baseball would be like?

[@kinpandun2464]

A small sun?

[@dennish5150]

Yep, space elevator you mentioned… hope this carbon nano onion does not end up the same way…😂

[@dennish5150]

@@hungrycrab3297 All BS for get funding ;)

[@Benni777]

LED’S are like onions; they have layers 😎

[@emmalahenry4306]

But like WHY was that particular fish scale chosen? I mean they went through A LOT before they microwaved them. Some other property that made them start studying them in the first place?

[@cmilkau]

For some applications, a rich mix of different onions might be beneficial though.

[@joshlebda6728]

the process sounds like something Rick Sanchez invented

[@shaunhall960]

I would imagine if Douglas Adams was alive today he would enjoy this immensely.

[@danielvonbose557]

I don't use a microwaves for pyrolysis but I do burn trash I have wadded up and extinguish with water once the volitiles have burned off. I use the resulting char as a soil amendment to enhance ion exchange and hence improve the effectiveness of applied soil nutrients.

[@mikegLXIVMM]

Now they should make a nano bloomin' onion. 😜

[@RoaringEgg]

I love this so much. Microwaving a fish and it somehow works looool

[@simongross3122]

If these things can make really efficient LED lights, perhaps they can also make really efficient PV solar cells.

[@radeksparowski7174]

Need Nano-Garlic to fight nano vampires ASAP.

[@lythnookwemin]

Considering the structures of fish scales, this makes since.

[@brendakrieger7000]

Fascinating

[@benedixtify]

Gonna have to farm the heck out of those snappers.

[@chrisphipps6642]

Fish scale nano onions + nuclear waste batteries + crystal lens refraction = Eternal flash light... or Silmarrillion.

[@abalrog42]

As a chemist, this is an AMAZING concept 🤯

[@TheEVEInspiration]

As for all the Black Snappers...they disagree :)

[@mikelewis1166]

Today I learned that we are one step closer to carbon nano soup

[@eve_squared]

I feel like all the other scientists who were struggling to produce the nano onions would have been pissed when they found out they could have just been microwaving fish this whole time.

[@me1970]

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

[@yr0]

Damn just like in “The light of other days” by Arthur C Clarke and Stephen baxter. They had a multilayered buckyballs be able to generate wormholes. Interesting.

[@JustwinJBees]

Any odd crafting recipe, in any game, this is why

[@r4raced4doom2]

Rumor has it, Outback Steakhouse has discovered the bloomin nano carbon onion and plans to offer it on their menu in the spring of 2023.

[@platinummyrr]

I'm curious if there's a way to get the scales that doesn't involve killing the fish so it can be more sustainable and avoid leading to pressure to harvest all of the fish of that type. Obviously we could theoretically just farm the requisite fish I suppose, hmmm

[@bobby_greene]

If it's a species of fish that people already eat the scales are usually a byproduct and this could be a way to limit waste

[@niki123489]

Hey, my oven has a pyrolisis function for cleaning. Does this mean I can make my own carbon nano-onions (sounds yammy) at home?

[@farmergiles1065]

If they prove to be widely usable, the next hurdle will be making them efficiently *en masse* . Scaling up to commercial production is often a very difficult step and may only develop slowly. All in good time.

[@diracsea4590]

Cool Ive been making these for over 35 years now 👍

[@ultranovva]

Onion Buckyballs, very interesting, could think they could be cooler, but I have been proved wrong

[@thegooddinggleberry]

How transparent are they, could you put a layers of them behind window surfaces of a skyscraper to power the building itself?

[@archivedaccount2049]

Epic. I love nanotech/ bionanotech

[@TheSleepSteward]

It is just insane to me how many times we've made something; looked at nature, and made something copying it, and then we find out, holy crap, this is so much better than what we made before!

[@Hrekto]

You had me at carbon nano-onion

[@jakobfindlay4136]

ive never heard of a carbon nano onion but it looks like nested bucky balls (Buckminsterfullerene)

[@zeuso.1947]

Does it need to be black snapper scales or could it be some other fish scales? Perhaps a red snapper, yelloweye, or black rockfish, or even salmon.

[@gohan724]

"Ohhh, they make you cry??... You leave em out in the sun, they get all brown, start sproutin' little white hairs. ... Parfait! Parfait has layers, and everybody loves parfait!"

[@dwdei8815]

You could call them Bucky-balls in their own geodesic domes.

[@tulsatrash]

This is so cool.

[@SC-zq6cu]

microwaving fish scales is the new scotch-taping pencil-lead.

[@vice.nor.virtue]

The seond Hank mentioned they created these onions in an odd way I was like WHAT HAVE THEY MICROWAVED "We put fish scales in a microwave!" OMG CAN ANY SCIENCE BE DONE WITHOUT ZAPPING EVERYTHING FOR ONCE

[@CatsRock11000]

Makes you want to just start zapping random stuff and see what it turns into

[@vice.nor.virtue]

@@CatsRock11000 tbf there are so many good microwave experiments. The immediate 2 that come to mind is a CD and crumpled up tin foil...There's also a really good one if you like put neon [or something similar] in an upsidedown shot glass and nuke it then it shines super bright!

[@uplink-on-yt]

I guess those nano onions made many scientists cry - most of them of sadness, with the microwave ones crying of joy.

[@OviWanKeno9i]

Imagine making a phone call to the past, and telling a researcher a couple of decades ago or more, "black snapper scales, clean well, microwave.." we would have mundane by now super capacitors in our cars, with stupid energy densities, super low power LEDs and hyper efficient solar panels.

[@imaboostedanimal2774]

Carbon Nano-Onions is coincidentally also the name of my upcoming sci-fi food themed rap album

[@SILVERF0X13]

Microwaving fish at work every single day? Everyone in the office must hate those guys.

[@Maxjoker98]

Let's not confuse the motives. The researchers clearly just wanted a bunch of free meals.

[@yourmom2860]

"what about parfaits? everyone loves parfaits!"

[@stillpointx2623]

Can you do one with generating nanobubbles with electrostatics? The paper is called Massive generation of metastable bulk nanobubbles in water by external electric fields.

[@TristanVash38]

Imagine someone harvesting humans in an alien world to make LED strips for their underglow on their car.

[@Deciheximal]

I suppose you could just breed ever smaller actual onions to get what you want. Harvest may be a bit tricky, though.

[@xbxb]

So how many scale exactly need to make like a solar panel? What's the yield of the fish scale per gram or something. If i works, how's the manufacturing be like and the supply of that fish scale? Is it easy to source? Is it abundant?

[@chadjones1266]

Thanks again

[@odievk]

A new e-fish-ient way to produce carpe-on nano-onions.

[@tkc1129]

That's rad. I want fish scale LEDs.