ice giantsWhich Uranus and Neptune, were originally thought to be extremely rare planets. However, since the discovery of exoplanets, it has become clear that this may be the most common type of planet outside the solar system. Therefore, it is important to know them thoroughly. There are many suspicions and undoubted facts about them, although the most striking thing is that it might rain diamonds inside. Yes, diamond rain, a dream, if it were not impossible to survive it.
And it is that this is due to two features of these planets: incredibly high temperatures inside and pressure, several million times higher than the earth. This, with the right ingredients, is the perfect recipe for making diamonds. This has already been observed in simulations from other studies. However, a new group of scientists repeated the process, using as a basis the same material with which Plastic bottles. The result published in Scientific achievementsit was very useful to learn more about Uranus and Neptune, as well as to discover new ways to obtain nanodiamonds.
They are very suitable, for example, for fabrication of quantum sensors. Thus, they can benefit a lot from this procedure in the future.
Diamond rain from Uranus and Neptune
Uranus and Neptune are known as ice giants of the solar system for a good reason. Its temperature is extremely low, several hundred degrees Celsius below zero. But its interior is much hotter. It can be reached several thousand degrees Celsius. If we add to this the presence of an atmosphere composed mainly of hydrocarbons and in which there is an unreasonably greater pressure than that of the earth, we have a perfect manufacturing process diamonds. This is why it has been known for many years that these gems fall on two gas giants.
For a long time, attempts have been made to reproduce in the laboratory what is happening on Uranus and Neptune. Usually take hydrocarbon film and it’s done to encroach on him laser ray, which quickly heats the material, creating a shock wave that compresses it to a high pressure. Diamonds were indeed obtained, but in fact they did not exactly reproduce the conditions gas giants.
It is known that in the atmosphere of these planets there is also a good dose of oxygen. Therefore, the hydrocarbon film is not enough. Team scientists from Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), the University of Rostock and the Ecole Polytechnique in France was aware of this inconvenience, so its participants set about searching for more suitable material. After a lot of research, they realized that one fairly common in everyday life can be very useful: polyethylene terephthalatebetter known as HOME PET.
This is the material from which typical plastic water bottles are made. Therefore, if the results were as expected, they could be faced with a very interesting new industrial procedure.
The success of plastic water bottles
The procedure for plastic water bottles was the same. They took a piece of PET film and shone a laser on it, which quickly shaped the material. 6000°C. This, together with an increase in pressure, contributed to the synthesis nanodiamondsperhaps much more similar to those found on Uranus and Neptune.
This is a very simple method, with very easy access to materials that might have many applications. And it lies in the fact that, as the authors of the study explained in their statement, these nanodiamonds can be used as “highly sensitive quantum sensors, medical contrast agents and effective reaction accelerators, for example, for splitting CO2.” So far they have received detonating explosivesbut that would be much simpler and cleaner.
In addition, the process can be made much more controllable: “A high-performance laser fires ten flashes per second on PET film, which is illuminated by the beam at tenth of a second intervals. The created nanodiamonds fly out of the film and fall into a collection tank filled with water. There they slow down and then they can be effectively filter and collect“. In addition, nanodiamonds can even be cut to size and doped with other atoms. All thanks to the laser and the same plastic as in water bottles. The goal was to better understand what the depths of Uranus and Neptune should be, but science is full of amazing coincidences, and this is without a doubt one of them.
Source: Hiper Textual
