Scientists worldwide are probably hitting their heads wondering, “Why didn’t I think of this!”

The idea for a simple new process came in a burst of inspiration: Can a camera flash instantly heat up graphite oxide and turn it into graphene?

Researchers simply hold a consumer camera flash over the graphite oxide and, a flash later, the material is now a piece of fluffy graphene. Awesome!

Previous processes to reduce graphite oxide relied on toxic chemicals or high-temperature treatment.

The process, discovered by Jiaxing Huang, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, and his graduate student Laura Cote, was published in the Aug. 12 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Check it out: