Miami— He sargassoa smelly plague that usually invades the beaches of the Caribbean And Florida could be the key to the future of the electronic industry, particularly to improve the image quality of next -generation televisions with more vibrant colors and more crisp.
Researchers at the University of Miami, in Florida, are transforming the sargassum, a brown algae of bad smell and unpleasant appearance, into tiny carbon particles with potential to improve those appliances.
Yiming XI, a doctoral student in Chemical Engineering, has been experiencing with the Marine Algae in the Aerosol and Air Quality Research Laboratory of the institution.
His method is to spray the sargassum in microgotas that are then overheated in an oven at 800 degrees Celsius. “During that overheating process, those drops break or pirolize and form carbon points to Nanoscale,” XI explained in the University Internet portal.
These carbon points, stressed, are emerging as a non -toxic alternative to conventional quantum points used on television screens, with the potential to offer more vibrant colors and more clear images.
1 /16 | The coasts of Puerto Rico are dyed brown with the arrival of Sargazo. Large concentrations of Sargazo began arriving at the Laguna del Condado, in San Juan, during the month of May 2025. – Carlos Giusti/Staff
Digital footprint detectors
Carbon points are already used in the detection of fingerprints, in containers to prolong food useful life and, thanks to their biocompatibility, in medical applications such as drug administration or bioimaging.
Also They show promise in agriculture and energy storage systems.
“The key aspect is that we are taking a waste material that normally ends up in landfills, where it can release dangerous pollutants, and we are making it something of great value to society,” said XI. He stressed that philosophy is to call it resource instead of waste.
With millions of tons of sargassum floating this summer in the tropical Atlantic and reaching the coast of Florida and the Caribbean -it will release toxic gases -the investigation arrives at a crucial moment.
Professor Pratim Biswas, director of the laboratory and co -author of the study, said that carbon points technology is still in an incipient stage. However, the XI method offers advantages over other approaches: it reduces steps in the process, avoid toxic chemicals and allows a more uniform production in one step.
The next challenge will be to test the carbon points in LED units. Tests require specific photonic materials, XI said. “We will wait for the supply chain to stabilize to obtain them and build the test environment.”