The material is good at taking in and giving out light! That means it has a good potential for use in Cell Phone and TV screens! It is the work of National University of Lesotho (NUL) Student, Maama Khampane. He worked under the guidance of Professor Heilmichael Alemu.

So how did he do it?

Let’s take a little trip into Maama’s science lab.

You’ve probably done a fun science experiment before—maybe mixing baking soda and vinegar to make a bubbly volcano. Maama’s experiment was kind of like that, but way cooler.

He mixed two special chemicals with funny names: melamine and 7,7,8,8-Tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ) and watched how they interacted in surprising ways.

Spoiler: the chemicals became best friends!

He was studying what scientists call “charge transfer complexes.” That’s just a fancy way of saying two different chemicals came together and shared some really tiny stuff called electrons. Imagine melamine (one of the chemicals) offering electrons like its dishing out snacks, and TCNQ (the other chemical) happily accepting them.

Boom! Instant friendship.

But this wasn’t just a random mix-and-hope-for-the-best situation.

Maama carefully measured everything, like a scientist-chef experimenting with a recipe:

Step 1: Prepping the Ingredients.
He mixed different amounts of melamine and TCNQ in a special liquid called DMSO—changing the recipe slightly each time to see what would happen.

Step 2: Shining Some Light.
He used a high-tech light machine (a UV-Visible spectrophotometer) to shine different colors of light through the mixtures. Think of it like holding up different coloured sunglasses to the sun to see what shows through.

Step 3: Spotting New Colors.
When the two chemicals bonded, new colours popped up—deep reds and near-infrared shades at 750 and 853 nanometers. That was the big clue that a new material had formed!

Step 4: Playing with Temperature.
Then he tested how heat affected the new chemical team. It turns out they liked cooler temperatures better—kind of like how we prefer a cool breeze over a boiling hot day.

Step 5: Crunching the Numbers.
To really understand what was going on, Maama did some serious math. He used scientific tools like Benesi-Hildebrand plots and Van’t Hoff equations to figure out the strength of the bond between the chemicals.

Here’s what he found:

• The reaction happens naturally (no need to force it)
• It releases energy when the chemicals bond
• The bond makes the chemicals more organized (scientists call this a decrease in entropy)

And here’s why it matters:

The material Maama created has a potential to be used in screens or solar panels because it interacts so well with light. It:

• Forms easily, using very little energy (only 0.07651 kJ/mol!).
• Stays together without needing extra effort.
• Could open doors to new tech like better screens, more efficient solar panels, or even advanced medicine.

Not every experiment worked out though. When Maama tried mixing melamine with other chemicals like chloroanil and dinitrobenzoic acid—nothing happened. No color changes, no teamwork.

Nothing.

But that’s science for you!

Sometimes you learn just as much from what doesn’t happen as from what does.

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