BEIJING– Chinese scientists have converted cheap copper into a materialthat is almost identical to gold. The material is expected to reduce theuse of yellow, expensive metals in factories.
Professor Sun Jian and colleagues at the Dalian Institute of ChemicalPhysics, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Liaoning, shot a coppertarget with a jet of hot, electrically charged argon gas.
The fast-moving ionised particles blasted copper atoms off the target. Theatoms cooled down and condensed on the surface of a collecting device,producing a thin layer of sand.
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According to SCMPlink,the researchers put the material in a reaction chamber and used it as acatalyst to turn coal to alcohol, a sophisticated and difficult chemicalprocess that only precious metals can handle efficiently.
