Hello, and welcome to the Physics World Weekly
podcast. I'm Hamish Johnston.
Coming up in this episode,
I explore
sustainability
issues
surrounding the wonder material,
Graphene.
And that's with the material scientist and engineer,
Burju
Saner Okan.
She is principal investigator
at Sabanju
University's
Sustainable
Advanced
Materials
Research Group in Istanbul.
And she's also involved in the commercial production
of Graphene.
But first,
recently I had the opportunity
to revisit my days as a student
at Canada's
University of Guelph.
I was on campus to record 2 podcast
interviews.
1 was with the food scientist and ice
cream expert,
Douglas Gough, who talked about the myriad physics
involved in making frozen desserts.
That conversation will appear in a special
festive December podcast,
so stay tuned for that.
I also caught up with the Guelph medical
physicist
Joanne
O'Meara,
who invited me to sit in on an
electricity
and magnetism
lecture that she was giving.
And I have to say I was very
proud of myself
when I managed to solve a problem that
she put to the class.
And that was nearly 40 years to the
day that I first showed up at Guelph
as an undergraduate.
Later that day, Joanne received a King Charles
the 3rd
Coronation
Medal
for her outstanding
achievements
and community contributions,
especially
in physics education
and science outreach.
After her lecture, I chatted with Joanne about
her passion for science communication.
Here is that conversation.
Hi, Joanne. Welcome to the podcast. Hi, Amritious.
Great to see you.
So, Joanne, why do you think it's important
for academic physicists to do outreach?
I think it's important because I think in
particular with physics, there's a little bit of
an image problem in some ways. I think
a lot of people have a tendency to
think that physics is
very esoteric,
very,
theoretical,
you know, black holes and cosmology.
And I think people don't really get a
sense of how physics plays a role in
so many things that they experience in their
everyday life.
And can can you give us an idea
of some of the,
outreach activities that you've taken part in throughout
your career? Because I think you've done a
lot, haven't you? I have done a lot.
It's it's I find it a lot of
fun. So, it's not a chore for me.
Yeah. It started when I was an undergrad,
actually, at McMaster.
I was part of the physics club,
and, there were a number of us who
would take a bunch of our fun physics
demos out to local elementary schools and do
demonstration shows for for schools.
So it started way back then. As a
grad student, I was a a tour guide
at the reactor on campus at McMaster. So
that was a great training ground for science
communication because,
you never knew what group you were gonna
have going on the tour. I gave tours
to boy scout groups, and I gave tours
to,
delegations from the International Atomic Energy Agency. I
bet you got some great questions from the
boy scout. It seems like some groups like
that. Yeah. You got great questions from both
of them, and it was a great way
to to learn how to tailor kind of
a script that you were going on for
different audiences because, obviously, you're not gonna give
the same tour to the IAEA as you
do to the Boy Scout group. So that
was great. Since I've been here at Guelph,
we've done lots of different things,
and a lot of them are, you know,
school visits.
I was teaching a science communication course to
our 3rd years,
where they had a budget, and they got
to design and build sort of science center
type activities
for elementary schools. And then we took them
to the local museum, and we had school
kids come through on field trips.
The there's a group here, Let's Talk Science,
that organizes an annual Harry Potter day,
in November. It's actually coming up. And a
couple of years ago, I was a guest
lecturer at Hogwarts School For Witchcraft and Wizardry
where I was the professor of aeronautical arts,
and I managed to,
in costume, give a presentation on, muggle technology,
like air flight and helicopters and you know?
So that was a lot of fun.
Yeah. We also run a monthly,
event at a local pub here, which is
for more for adults,
although anyone's welcome.
And each month is a different theme. So
September was evolution. We had a couple of
speakers from integrative biology,
and they talk for about 20 minutes each.
There's great question and answer, and then we
play a little trivia game.
And it's just a really casual
environment for people to learn about science,
in a very informal way and ask great
questions of of experts in the field.
It's interesting you should mention scouts because I'm
a scout leader back in Bristol. Yeah. And
once,
we actually took the scouts up to the
University of Bristol, and we visited a lab
Okay. Where they specialize in ultrasound.
Oh, nice. They do things like,
levitate little balls using ultrasound
and, things like that. And, you know, that
I mean, that was an amazing experience both
as a scout leader and as a as
a physicist.
I mean, that was just a one off.
You know, we don't often get invitations from
universities. I had a contact Right. At the
university. Right.
Is is that something that happens at Guelph?
Is, you know, is the university welcoming to
to outside groups? Do can you can people
book a tour in a lab? Or is
that a difficult thing to do? Yeah. I
mean, it is a little bit tricky. We
try to be. And I think,
we have specific kind of days where we
we open up to the community.
There's a couple of events in the fall.
They're a little bit more targeted to,
you know, recruiting high school senior high school
students to consider coming here for undergraduate.
But there's also an event in March called
College Royal, which you probably remember That's right.
Which is a huge university wide open house,
and brings thousands of people to campus. And
it's a really great way to integrate
the community into the university. It's all I'm
sure it's a problem or challenge in every
kind of university town. There's kind of the
the, you know, the 2
the 2,
cultures. And
and it's something I really strived hard
to do over the last however many years
is to not so much open the doors
here and have people come here, but more
just get out into the community and take,
you know, the science to people in their
neighborhoods.
There's a lot of people who see who
see universities as, you know, kind of these
elite,
you know, ivory tower type places, and they're
intimidating. And and, and so trying to bring
the science to them where they're more comfortable,
I think is is a good activity to
be part of. Yeah. As was the Science
in the Pub is a a classic example.
Science in the Pub is great. I mean,
we've been running it for a couple of
years now.
And every month, we have, there's kinda little
side room to the main pub, and it
holds about 45 people. And every month, it's
full.
We've had topics like evolution. Last March, we
had,
math professor come
and,
talk about measuring pie for pie day,
with spaghetti noodles. And we did this activity,
and we had 45 adults in a pub
with uncooked spaghetti noodles and pieces of paper
measuring pie. And then the math professor it
was so much fun. And then the math
professor, Mihanika,
explained
how it was that these squares and straight
things
ended up with a pretty decent approximation of
pi.
And so, yeah, we've had a wide range
of topics. Last month was, women's health, specifically
looking at how women
are differently impacted by cardiovascular
disease, strokes, and heart attacks,
attacks. And that was also a sold out
event.
And then, you know, obviously, space. Every time
we do a space one, totally sold out.
But, yeah, it's been a lot of fun.
We also recently the department of physics and
Royal City Science, which is the group I
run,
We coown a new mobile planetarium,
which we got,
from a donation from a retired faculty member
who passed away a couple of years ago.
You probably knew him, Jim Stevens. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. I remember Jim. He donated some money
in his estate,
for outreach initiatives, and we decided that
Jim was a larger than life character. We
wanted to do something really meaningful with this
money. So we got a matching grant from
the Canadian Space Agency
to buy a mobile planetarium, and we can
take it to schools. We took it down
to a fall fair.
We were at,
the Lumen Festival in Waterloo a couple of
weekends ago,
and we can ho host about 40 to
50 people in the dome at a time,
and we can set it up and and
run,
planetarium shows kind of all over the place.
So That sounds great. Yeah. When you're when
you're doing activities
that involve adults, do you find that you're
preaching to the converted in the sense that
a lot of the people,
maybe they they've done science at university,
and and they're trying to keep up their
interest?
Or or do you get do do you
get people who come in who, you know,
know very little about science and are very
keen to learn? It's it's really all over
the place, and,
I think that's the fun part of of
hosting events like Science on Tap, for example,
which is generally adults.
We always start by kind of, you know,
asking who's here for the first time, who's
come before. And it's typically about 5050.
We definitely have some some serious science enthusiasts
who have a science background and love, you
know, the monthly kind of
refresh of a different field. But we also
have lots of people who come like, the
the event for women's health last,
month, we had a number of people there
who definitely don't have a science background,
definitely don't necessarily seek out science
events.
But as women in their fifties,
or forties,
and maybe have a family history, they were
really interested to learn about this topic.
And it's it's a a very non intimidating
way to learn about it by coming to
a pub with your friends,
having a pint or, you know,
some snacks and listening to, speakers
give presentations and ask questions. There's a really,
relaxed atmosphere, and the questions that we get
asked are just amazing.
And and, Joanne, you also do a lot
of writing, don't you?
Popular science writing. I do.
And
you've produced a series of articles called
Wonder Why. Yeah. And and these are available
online. And I've I mean, I can only
describe it as an eclectic
collection,
that covers a broad range of topics. You've
looked at,
you know, for example, why is the color
blue so rare in nature? Yep.
You look at,
the magnetic nature of some animals. You've looked
at the physics of sports.
How many is it? It's it's over 20
articles that you Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I I sort of lost count. I was
trying to count them, but, oh, there's another
page in the I try to do it
monthly, and it doesn't always work out that
way. Yeah. It's I I mean, it's it's
a it's a really nice,
collection. So why why do you spend,
time and and effort on that? That's a
good question. I I find it rewarding. I
enjoy writing,
and,
I think it's again, it kinda goes back
a little bit to the the image,
problem of of people tend to think of
physics as being really hard and very mathy
and all about,
esoteric things that they don't have any familiarity
with.
And I just I love those moments of,
you know,
seeing something around you,
in nature and just kinda stopping and going,
hang on a minute.
Why why does it look like that? Or,
you know, why does it not look like
this?
And and sort of puzzling with it and
then trying to
explain it to myself
in a way that makes sense, then I
can pass on to other people who might
also have wondered the same thing. Like,
one of the stories I wrote or part
of articles I wrote was about,
the spacing of ducklings swinging swimming behind a
mother duck.
And it's actually,
wave interference effects.
And
when I first saw the paper that described
this, it was like, oh my like, you've
seen a 1000000 times
baby ducks swim swimming in single file behind
their mother or father.
And
I I never even stopped to say why
are they always in single file. Why don't
they, you know, why don't they just move
around? Is the separation sort of fixed? Separation
is fixed. And they and they're all sit
they're all actually swimming on
crests
of the wave pattern behind the mother's wake,
and they're getting a little bit of a
swimming boost. And there was there was actually
an experiment that, biologists did where,
he trained
baby ducks to swim behind a decoy in
a water tank, and he was able to
study and measure what was he measuring? He
was measuring the foot,
straight it was this clear sided tank. So
he was able to measure the foot stroke
of the ducklings and get an estimate of
the effort that they were putting into swimming
and playing around with the different
rates of flow in the tank. And I
guess I just get excited when I see
a simple yet
clever
experimental design or a a really
succinct kind of theoretical explanation of something that's
everyday.
And,
and I just wanna share that because I
think it's it's amazing to me that we
can use these math expressions to explain
why baby ducklings are swimming in single file
at these specific spacings behind their mother. Yeah.
That's a great I mean, I have to
say, I'm a bit embarrassed that we missed
that one on Physics World. You're right. Are
you sure you missed that one? Because I
feel like I get a lot of inspiration
from Physics World. May may may maybe maybe
I've just forgotten. Where where else do you
get your inspiration for you know, how how
do you choose a topic? Is it just
you suddenly realize,
my gosh. This is interesting. Sometimes. Yeah. I
mean, I think some of the examples I
can think of that were things that I've
I've noticed and kind of wondered about.
One was,
I I'm a rower, so I go to
the the lake on a regular basis. And,
one day after I had, you know, put
all the gear away, I was cleaning up
the dock, and there were all kinds of
water gliders, water striders, the bugs that,
are on the surface of the water. And
Yeah. Yeah. They they scoot in really,
interesting patterns, and they they leap vertically off
the surface. And and I I was transfixed
sitting there watching them.
And so then I just kinda went, you
know, why? How are they moving around like
this? And turns out that they're actually rowers.
They,
they have their middle leg. So they have
3 legs on each side, and the middle
leg is actually kind of like an oar
that they're using to effectively skull across the
surface.
So that was one that I was inspired
by in in nature. Another one was my
daughter,
one of my older daughters, an avid horseback
rider. And,
she was talking about how
she was told by her coach that
where you take off from to go over
a jump,
you need to be taking off as far
away from the jump as the jump is
high. That's just kinda like the rule that
they go by. And I was like, well,
yeah, that's projectile motion. It's it's a 45
degree angle, and that's the that's the and
so then, you know,
horse jumping is projectile motion. And that's not
something I think you know, we think about
throwing a baseball or we think about those
kinds of things, but horse jumping. You know?
And so I I, you know, had a
fun little time with my daughter taking some
videos and and analyzing the motion of the
horse going over the jump. Or another one
was my daughter going down a water slide
off the back of a houseboat that we
were vacationing in.
So, yeah, it's it's things that I noticed
that I think,
you know, a lot of people wouldn't necessarily
see all of the beautiful physics and math
that's behind it.
And to me, it makes it even more,
magical to
connect
the theory with the everyday
observations.
As well as growing your wonder why collection,
what are your plans for future outreach projects?
Yeah. So great question. So we're continuing the
science on top series monthly.
We have lots of interest from community groups
to bring the planetarium out to schools, to
community events.
So that's definitely gonna keep us busy,
and continue to write. We have a number
of students here in our physics program who
are keen to get involved in science communication,
create little videos for our YouTube channel or
for,
social media. So helping them with that.
And then our nonprofit organization, Royal City Science,
we're advocating
for the building of a new science center
for Southwestern Ontario.
So that's been a huge focus of mine
too.
So we're,
really pushing hard in applying for funding,
for the next step of the feasibility study.
And then, hopefully, when that demonstrates that this
is an actual viable option, we'll be at
the point where we can start a capital
campaign and
and actually start building something. Yeah. Well, that
would be really exciting. Mhmm. Yeah.
Definitely. And and the plan would be to
have it here in Guelph and Actually, we've
been looking lately,
at being just down the road from here,
about 20 minutes down the road, in the
township
township of Puslunch, which is right at the
401.
So,
in Southern Ontario, there's a major, highway artery
called Highway 401 that travels basically from, you
know, the southwesternmost
corner all the way over to Quebec.
And,
so we're looking at building right beside the
401 to be able to be much more
accessible to, you know, about 8,000,000 people who
live within a 90 minute drive of that
location. Right. And as well,
has a number of, gravel pits in their
township because of the geology of the region.
And so we're aiming
to be part of a rehabilitation
of a gravel pit and make that part
of the educational experience as well.
You know, essentially, a living laboratory. Every time
you visit, there'll be, you know, a new,
a new development on the site or a
new evolution of the site. And and citizen
science projects, research, all kinds of things could
happen on the surrounding lands as well. Oh,
that that that sounds great. Yeah. And and
so finally, Joanne, I mean, you you're a
pro at this.
So I'm sure a lot of people out
there are, you know, would would like to
know what sort of advice you have about,
you know, getting involved in Outreach.
I mean, you know, either as an undergraduate
or as a a professor or somebody in
between, maybe even somebody in industry. What's, I
mean, what would your top tips be? Yeah.
Well, I would say definitely start with what
you know. You know? Focus on on what
your areas of interest are. I think if
you're enthusiastic and excited about what you're talking
about, that translates.
So, you know, start talking about the things
that you do. Try and make it as
tactile and hands on as you can. I
mean, obviously, that's more difficult, different disciplines.
But yeah. And make connections with you know,
start small. You don't have to start with
a monthly series at a pub that runs,
you know, for years on end.
Just start with a one off. Maybe you
have kids who are in scouts, or maybe,
your neighbor has,
you know, a a community group that meets
monthly to have a speaker.
There's lots out there.
And just, you know, make connections and say,
hey. I'd like to come and and chat
for half an hour and and just keep
it,
informal, keep it fun, keep
it keep it light.
And and your enthusiasm
is
so important, and it's so infectious. And,
and that's, I think, the best way to
start. Oh, that's great. That's some great advice.
Thanks for, coming on the podcast, Joanne. Oh,
it was my pleasure. Thanks.
You can explore Joanne's Wonder Why series of
articles
at www.wonderwhy.ca.
Graphene is a sheet of carbon just 1
atom thick,
and it was first fully isolated and characterized
just 20 years ago by Andre Guim and
Konstantin
Novosilov
at the UK's
University of Manchester.
They went on to share a Nobel Prize
for their pioneering work. And physicists
around the world have since shown that the
material has a wide range of fascinating properties
and commercial uses.
Today, however, the mass manufacture
of graphene
is not particularly
sustainable.
To find out how this can be improved,
I spoke to Burju
Sanur Okan,
who is principal investigator
at Sabanju
University's
sustainable
advanced
materials
research group in Istanbul.
Here's that conversation.
I'm joined down the line from Istanbul
by Birju
Saner Okan.
Hi, Birju. Welcome to the podcast.
Hello.
Thank you so much.
So, Birju, you're the principal investigator
at Sabangju
University's
sustainable
advanced materials
research group. What are the goals of your
group?
The goal of the sustainable advanced materials research
group is to derive innovation
in sustainable
material solutions,
through interdisciplinary
research.
My research group spans, the development of sustainable
nanomaterials
like, graphene from different waste sources,
functional
coatings,
like activating the fabrics,
providing some electrical conductivity,
thermal conductivity
to the surfaces,
and advanced composite materials all aimed at fostering
a circular economy guided by life cycle assessment
principles.
Our group strive to create multi scale and
multi functional composites
as well as functional membranes to address the
critical challenges in energy efficiency
and wastewater treatment,
contributing
to a more sustainable
future.
And one of your research interests is the
sustainable production
and use of Graphene.
So today, how is graphene produced
and used? And what are the current sustainability
issues?
Graphene
is typically produced from graphite,
through methods like chemical exfoliation
using strong acidic solution, like sulfuric acid,
nitric acid, phosphoric acid,
and also using highly oxidizing agent like potassium
permanganate.
This process is highly exothermic
releasing a significant
amount of heat and is not scalable for
large scale industrial application due to the safety
concerns and environmental impacts.
The production process generates
toxic waste and involves high energy consumption
making,
this process unsustainable.
But when you look at the current sustainable
issues,
especially
handling,
the hazardous materials and then disposing of harmful
chemicals during the production,
and then if you tailor this
process condition,
you can,
provide much more sustainable process.
Instead of using acidic solutions,
you can,
evaluate to use some sustainable
waste sources like plastics,
like,
biomass because they contain carbon source inside
and then you can mimic the conventional graphene
production methods.
And using this alternative more sustainable carbon sources
instead of graphite,
it is possible to reduce the environmental footprint,
improve the scalability,
and then provide
sustainable
production methods
and then support circular economic principles and reduce
the dependence on raw graphite.
I see. And and what are you doing,
in your lab at the moment? What are
you and your colleagues doing,
to to forward this goal
of creating,
sustainable graphene?
In my group,
especially, we focus on
much more
mild production techniques instead of using acidic solutions.
We are selecting some carbon sources like,
coming from the pyrolysis process of waste tires
and then we are getting the carbon black.
And then carbon black can convert it into
the crystalline structure
with the developed processes in our group. So
here that it is important to make amorphous
carbon material into
crystalline
graphene.
So my major aim to make to use
this,
amorphous and waste carbon
to use,
to develop
sustainable
production technique
And then we are developing
Graphene from waste tire,
Graphene from plastics like polypropylene,
which is,
widely used in
the commodity application in automotive.
So this is most of the post consumable
plastics can be converted into graphene
by using,
some templates like these are this can be
also natural templates like talc because talc,
like a laminar structure, 2 d structure, and
then you can mimic
chemical vapor deposition technique by
acting this material as a silicon wafer. And
then instead of ethylene gas, you can use
the carbon
coming from the plastics
at high temperature and carbon atoms can dissociate.
And then you can start to grow
graphene structure on the natural substrate. So this
also provide,
waste management,
and then you can support circular economic practices
by turning waste into high value
materials.
And, Birju, this isn't just a fundamental
research that you're doing. You've cofounded a company
called Euronova
that produces graphene from waste tires.
Can you talk a bit about the company?
How how many people do you employ, and,
how much graphene are you producing at the
moment?
In fact,
I I have, 2 company. Now,
I, a little bit changed my business plan.
And then just
producing graphene from waste material is not enough
to find a suitable customer in the value
chain in the market.
So in order to attack the the
end users and then in order to collaborate
the OEMs, graphene should be in some,
plastics
and then also it should be some in
carrier. In the standing alone, it's not easy
to find a suitable,
customer
in the,
market. So with EuroNova,
we addressed it to use the sustainable,
graphene and sustainable
additives, not limited with graphene. Also,
we are using the carbon fibers
coming from the, the,
company processes
and then scalable,
waste materials can be used into
thermoplastic
compounding process because, also, plastics are a common
problem now.
So we can introduce a new approach to
waste and post consumer
utilization
by developing additives
and reintegrating
them into the economy.
So what we are doing, we are develop
sustainable
masterbatch, having graphene, other fillers,
and,
and also
different waste materials coming from thermosets, thermoplastics,
and biomass.
We are making,
like a puzzle. And then we are bringing
the all these waste materials into value added
products to be used in OEM,
OEM applications.
So in our company,
now, we will,
start to produce
a mass production
of the material that we verified by OEM
in this November.
We we will,
work now about
10 different
investor in the company.
We reorganized
the company
and then,
we got investment
and then we can scale the the materials,
sustainable thermoplastic materials, having different
waste additives,
to produce,
tonne scale production,
at the end of this year.
And, Birju, when you speak to potential customers,
of graphene and other materials,
are they very keen in buying,
products that are
produced
sustainably? Is that a is that sort of
a key,
requirement
for many
manufacturers?
Yeah.
This is important question.
Because,
in the market, especially in the commodity products,
the price is very important.
This is very competitive.
So,
graphene,
you know, high-tech material. And then if you
find a suitable solution
for graphene and for the manufacturing,
so you can decrease the cost. In our
case, we decrease the cost and then we
combine the also the material
with the thermoplastics
suitable for the conventional system, extrusion system without
any additional investment
from,
the, for example, part producer sides
or tier 1, tier 2.
So you could not get any additional cost
in your process, so you can apply
this material
in the,
their in their value chain. So we can
finally,
address the
global plastic industry and then related sectors
by decreasing the cost
and providing
a sustainable solution because carbon tax becomes very
important,
Each country having different levels. So in order
to reduce the carbon tax,
each sector should use their post consumer
waste.
So this can be, for example, in automotive
side.
In automotive,
makers should use the,
their base at least 25%
in their parts
by,
coming,
from their
processes.
So this becomes very important, and this initiate
also to reduce the carbon tax and then
provide new solution to the companies.
I see.
Well, that that does sound really exciting and
and and also very good from an environmental
environmental
and sustainability
point of view.
Well, great. I I hope that, both your
fundamental research and Euro Nova go very well
in the future.
Birce, thanks so much for coming on the
podcast.
Thank you so much.
That was Birce
Okan
at Turkey's
Sabanci University.
And before that, we heard from Joanne O'Meara
at the University of Guelph in Canada.
Thanks to both for joining me today.
And a special thanks to our producer, Fred
Iles.
I'm afraid that's all the time we have
for this week's podcast.
I'll be back again next week when I'm
in conversation
with the author of a book that explains
how astronomers
could educate themselves,
their students,
and the public
about climate change.