Graphene

No matter how diverse a subject, there's always an expert on Saintsweb, so where better to find out about graphene??

So this stuff is cool, right? It's going to revolutionise modern manufacturing/electronics/travel etc. But, away from all the wishy washy hyperbole, can someone give me a a couple of specific examples of where graphene is really going to affect us?

Is it really the next magic material?

In laymans terms Graphene is a crystalline allotrope of carbon with 2-dimensional properties. In graphene, carbon atoms are densely packed in a regular sp²-bonded atomic-scale chicken wire pattern. Graphene can be described as a one-atom thick layer of graphite.

Pretty handy huh ?

Very conductive, both heat and electricity.

http://conversations.nokia.com/2013/02/07/hero-material-10-fascinating-facts-about-graphene/

can be made in household food mixers according to one report i have seen

Saw that as well - With graphite powder and washing up liquid if my memory serves me correctly.

can be made in household food mixers according to one report i have seen

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27113732

Thinner condoms will be a bonus to some....

From a chemistry/physics point of view, it's a very simple material - essentially pencil lead (graphite) is sheets of carbon atoms in the same structure as graphene, albeit much lower quality in terms of regularity of the structure.

What makes graphene interesting is its properties. If we can figure out a way to reliably produce it on a mass scale (we're just about pushing something like half a gram/hour with our current techniques), then it can be used for many many things, but it's the nanotechnology that many physicists are arguably most interested in. With graphene, it's possible to make switches literally atoms across, so the shrinking of electronics and computers can continue, and a few years ago MIT managed to get reliable transitors made of graphene and clocked one at 427GHz. My laptop right now has a processor running at 2.2GHz - so replacing the silicon chips with graphene-based transitors would (theoretically of course) give a processor almost 200x faster. Maybe in 50 years or so we'll be approaching this?

The other thing that it could be incredibly useful for would be for photovoltaic cells, due to its high conductivity, but since graphene is all one type of atom there's no band gap - the property that semi-conductors such as gallium arsenide have that mean they can turn sunlight into current. If the scientists of the future can figure that out, then we'll be home and dry!

Carbon is such a common and cheap element - if we can crack graphene use, even just one application of it, then that would be a major gain.

I'm obviously not an expert in this - I'm only in the second year of my chemistry degree - but this is an area I'm pretty interested in and it could get pretty exciting... though it would help if there was a bit more money being spent on this kind of thing by the government rather than on railways to Birmingham.

Looks like mass production may be on its way.

http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmat3944.html

http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2014/04/the-dawn-of-the-graphene-age/

Can we make "Drip Dry Bri-Nylon" shirts from it?

Can we make "Drip Dry Bri-Nylon" shirts from it?

Please don't.