Seaweed Waste Transforms Into High-Tech TV Screens

Miami, Florida — Sargassum, the plague of seaweed that frequently inundates Caribbean and Florida beaches, could become the key to the future of the electronics industry, particularly for improving the image quality of next-generation televisions with more vibrant colors and sharper images.

Researchers at the University of Miami in Florida are transforming sargassum, a brown seaweed known for its foul odor and unpleasant appearance, into tiny carbon particles with the potential to enhance these appliances.

Yiming Xi, a doctoral student in Chemical Engineering, has spent a year experimenting with the seaweed in the university’s Aerosol and Air Quality Research Laboratory. His method involves pulverizing the sargassum into microdroplets that are then superheated in an oven to 800 degrees Celsius.

“During that superheating process, those droplets break down or are pyrolyzed and form carbon dots on a nanoscale,” explained Xi on the university’s website.

These carbon dots, he emphasized, are emerging as a non-toxic alternative to conventional quantum dots used in television screens, with the potential to deliver more vibrant colors and sharper images.

Fingerprint Detectors

Carbon dots are already used in fingerprint detection, in packaging to extend the shelf life of food, and, thanks to their biocompatibility, in medical applications such as drug administration and bioimaging. They also 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 converting it into something of great value for society,” Xi highlighted.

He underscored that the philosophy is to call it a resource instead of waste.

With millions of tons of sargassum floating in the tropical Atlantic in recent months and washing up on the coasts of Florida and the Caribbean—where it releases toxic gases—this research arrives at a crucial time.

Professor Pratim Biswas, director of the laboratory and co-author of the study, noted that carbon dot technology is still in its early stages. However, Xi’s method offers advantages over other approaches: it reduces steps in the process, avoids toxic chemicals, and allows for more uniform production in a single step.

The next challenge will be testing the carbon dots in LED units. The tests require specific photonic materials, indicated Xi. “We will wait for the supply chain to stabilize so we can obtain them and build the test environment.”