Graphene is a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb-like pattern. Graphene is considered to be the world's thinnest, strongest and most conductive material - to both electricity and heat. All this properties are exciting researchers and businesses around the world - as graphene has the potential the revolutionize entire industries - in the fields of electricity, conductivity, energy generation, batteries, sensors and more.
Mechanical strength
Graphene is the world's strongest material, and so can be used to enhance the strength of other materials. Dozens of researches have demonstrated that adding even a trade amount of graphene to plastics, metals or other materials can make these materials much stronger - or lighter (as you can use less amount of material to achieve the same strength).
Such graphene-enhanced composite materials can find uses in aerospace, building materials, mobile devices, and many other applications.
Thermal applications
Graphene is the world's most conductive material to heat. As graphene is also strong and light, it means that it is a great material to make heat-spreading solutions, such as heat sinks. This could be useful in both microelectronics (for example to make LED lighting more efficient and longer lasting) and also in larger applications - for example thermal foils for mobile devices.
Energy storage
Because graphene is the world's thinnest material, it is also the material with the highest surface-area to volume ratio. This makes graphene a very promising material to be used in batteries and supercapacitors. Graphene may enable devices that can store more energy - and charge faster, too. Graphene can also be used to enhance fuel-cells.
Coatings ,sensors, electronics and more
Graphene has a lot of other promising applications: anti-corrosion coatings and paints, efficient and precise sensors, faster and efficient electronics, flexible displays, efficient solar panels, faster DNA sequencing, drug delivery, and more.
Graphene is such a great and basic building block that it seems that any industry can benefit from this new material. Time will tell where graphene will indeed make an impact - or whether other new materials will be more suitable.
The latest Graphene Application news:
Graphene Leaders Canada provides financial and commercial updates
Graphene Leaders Canada (GLC) has announced that it has been awarded $350,000 CAD (around $261,000 USD) grant funding for a joint project under the National Research Council – United Kingdom (UK) Research Institute (NRC-UKRI) Research and Innovation Program. This funding will support GLC’s “Scaling of Graphene Oxide” towards the development of GLC’s Environmental platform of products.
“This project will support scale up activities of graphene oxide with a focus on developing a cost effective, scalable production method aimed at commercializing our environmental platform of products for air and water treatment,” said Dr. Leah Coumont, GLC’s Director of R&D.
Verditek and Paragraf shooting for high efficiency silicon/graphene solar cells
Verditek and Paragraf have announced that they have successfully applied graphene to a photovoltaic (PV) cell as part of a joint development program (JDR) and are now continuing work with the goal of surpassing 25% efficiency.
London-based clean technology company Verditek explains that as part of the partners’ first development project they applied Paragraf's graphene manufacturing process to Verditek's solar technology to produce a working proof-of-concept silicon/graphene integrated solar cell. As a next-stage project, they will aim to boost the performance of the cells, develop the opportunity to file patents and possibly initiate commercial discussions for industrial manufacture and application.
New technology will use graphene biosensors to rapidly test for malaria
Researchers at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL) and Research Institute for Life and Health Sciences (ICVS) at the University of Minho in Portugal will develop a graphene-based device that allows the early diagnosis of malaria, in a fast and reliable way, and at an accessible cost.
Over the course of a year, both institutions will work to utilize the technology of graphene-based sensors, developed at INL.
Understanding graphene/GaN and other 2D/3D interfaces by UV illumination could be crucial for next-gen electronics
Researchers from the Nagoya Institute of Technology (NITech) in Japan have developed a method to examine the connections between two-dimensional layers of atoms and semiconductors, which could prove useful in the future for ensuring the performance of next-gen electronics.
The fabrication process of a monolayer graphene on free-standing GaN interface
The team applied a layer of graphene to gallium nitride, a commonly used semiconductor. The graphene is made of a single layer of atoms, while the gallium nitride is a three-dimensional structure. Together, graphene and gallium nitride are known as a heterojunction device, with significant sensitivity to the interface properties of metal and semiconductors.
Vittoria to launch new range of graphene-enhanced bicycle tires
Italian bicycle tire manufacturer Vittoria Industries recently announced that it is launching a new range of products employing a second generation of its graphene-filler technology. The graphene supplier is assumed to be Perpetuus Carbon, as the two companies signed a long-term supply agreement for graphene materials.
It was said that while the first-generation generally enhanced the performance of tires, the new 2.0 graphene is functionalized to improve specific tire performances, targeting metrics like speed, wet grip, durability and puncture resistance.
