Is Graphene Going To Save Us?

Darn. I misspelled graphene in the pathfinder tag, and can't edit it.

Good news. Even with your pitiful spelling, graphene still comes up.

I think it is an extrordinary material that will be used to enhance our lives. Hopefully it won't mutate and turn into a killer wave of graphene death.

Interestingly, when you spellcheck "graphene" you get Grapheme
Graphing
Graven
Graphed
Graphite,

Well, if spell checker doesn't recognize it, I'm not going to worry about it.

This stuff sounds cool beyond words. The article I just finished, is talking about batteries that are ten times smaller, but with the same capacity. MIT is working on an industrial size press, that could potentially crank out big sheets of it. It's being worked on all over the planet.

It's only a matter of time until we start seeing some awesome new products and technology.

Very interesting articles. From a professionals perspective, do you think it'll be difficult / expensive to mass produce this technology? The future is so exciting! Also, welcome back kramarat :D

Transistors were expensive to produce, at first. Now ASICs are commodities.

Demand, technology and human ingenuity will find a way.

Thanks. I've been lurking. Ready to post again. Getting a little weary of nothing but politics and cussing.

Yeah, it's going to be easy and cheap to produce. They can even make it out of food scraps and plastic trash. Someone is making it out of table sugar, as we speak.

They're also talking about car tires that last for the life of the car. I can't stop thinking of the possibilities. A fire hose with walls that are one or two atoms thick?

It sounds so cool, that I can almost imagine vast corporate conspiracies to prevent it from moving forward.

It's almost too good to be true....It does appear to be one of those rare true breakthrough discoveries that has the potential to change everything... When I hear something like this I can't help but wonder what unintended consequences accompany it though....

Graphene is the newest mystery substance. It will dramatically alter some technology one day but how and who it will help is still to soon to say. I suspect that one of the fields that graphene will be useful is in power transmission but will it be mechanically reinforcing the conductors or reducing power loss is anyones guess right now. There are also indirect ways that studying graphene can help us. I helped a team comparing how graphene and warm super-conductors function at an atomic level.

Here's some current stuff:

http://phys.org/news/2011-04-ibm-graphene-transistor.html

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/05/08/graphene-optical-modulators-ultrafast-communications/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110512150731.htm

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/105343-graphene-improves-lithium-ion-battery-capacity-and-recharge-rate-by-10x

Man, if they are able to mass produce this stuff, we're gonna be living in a different world. Better.

It sounds like the answer to almost everything. Amazing that just a sheet of carbon atoms can have such properties and has been "right under our noses" for so long. Sure hope it bears out the promise.

Back in about 1985 I remember visiting Sussex University in England trying to get their Chemistry Dept. interested in an IR Spectrometer. The man I came to see - Dr. Harry Kroto - told me was off to visit Rice University, TX, for a few weeks, but that I could talk to his Ph.D. student. The student showed me how they were generating soot particles in the fume cupboard, analysing them with a mass spectrometer and finding "interesting carbon structures." I came away scoffing "what a damned waste of taxpayers money - paying for people to analyse soot! Can't they find something better to do?" Little did I know till years later that they were on their way to discovering "Buckminster Fullerenes" and that Kroto and colleagues Smalley & Curl at Rice received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1996 for their discovery.

This proved to me (again) that I was definitely more suited to a "commercial role" in science rather than fundamental research! Lesson learned.

Thanks for putting this wonder material up in our faces kramarat.

Reading about for ages and the promise is so tantalizing it hurts.

Energy storage seems to hold the most promise for something to come out of it pretty darn soon.

I can't see how it could be threat at all.

So what exactly is it supposed to save us from?

I see '_______ is going to save us!' in the news about every week but I never see what exactly the thing ______ is going to save us from ever mentioned?

I just put the "save" part in there to get your attention.

On the other hand, the applications seem almost infinite. Battery storage, light weight composites, for everything from cars to airplanes, super lightweight bullet proof vests, super fast data transfer.........................And the raw material doesn't even have to be mined. It's all around us.

Once we figure out how to mass produce it, it can be made from garbage.

I don't know if anything can save us, but I think this stuff I going to be a game changer................on a global scale.

Looking forward to graphene CNG tanks.

..and it may well be able to contain that pesky tiny molecule....Hydrogen.

I'm looking forward to owning a boat that weighs about 3 lbs..............without the motor.

What parts of the motor/transmission could be replaced with graphene I wonder?

• Prop
• All covers and cowlings
• Pistons/conrods/crank(?)
• Gears(?)
• Valve train/reed valves (they could be uber fast!!)
  
• water pump
• Muffler
• yadda yadda
  

Could be a 1 pound motor too. or not. no idea really...just like everybody else.

Can't wait to see it in action. We'll see it first in motorsports and aerospace I reckon.

I don't see why not. In fact, the motor would dissapate heat so efficiently, it probably wouldn't need a water pump.

I'm probably going out on a limb here. But could we see batteries that are so small, light, and powerful, that we could say goodbye to the IC engine?

Air cooled boat engine......diabolical!

The irony here is that the boat would end up needing ballast.

We could just use those old fashioned lead acid batteries!

I am drawing up plans for a better mouse trap..However humor aside how about airliners that weigh half as much or less then again there is space travel and of course a golf driver that can lay the ball on the green every time..

I'm getting a headache, thinking of the applications.

Come on, we know what the headache's from!

It ain't from thinkin'.

I'm reformed..................really!

I stay away from the computer when I'm on the headache juice. _Mostly.

That's no fun.

This is why the aliens are not contacting us. We are discovering things they don't have. If they were to contact us, we would just follow their lead, and would quit inventing and discovering. (besides, it's the prime directive)

I was actually thinking that we were almost out of things to invent.

Call me crazy®, but this stuff is the wet dream of scientists and engineers everywhere.

®Don't call me crazy..................we've already done that.

Last week's messiah was carbon nanotubes; next week's will be graphene nanotubes.

You mean graphene picotubes, don't you?

Whle most are talking about energy storage and transmission applications, one group is using it as a coating for the inside of telescopes. It's light absorbing capabilities make it almost a 'black-body' type of material. I wonder if it has the same capability for temperature measurement/standard devices.