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 - of both electricity and heat. All of these properties are exciting researchers and businesses around the world - as graphene has the potential to 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 can be used to enhance the strength of other materials. Dozens of researchers have demonstrated that adding even a trace amount of graphene to plastics, metals or other materials can make these materials much stronger - or lighter (as you can use a smaller 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 most heat conductive found to date. As graphene is also strong and light, it means that it is a great material for making heat-spreading solutions, such as heat sinks or heat dissipation films. 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. Huawei's latest smartphones, for example, have adopted graphene-based thermal films.
Energy storage
Since graphene is the world's thinnest material, it also extremely high surface-area to volume ratio. This makes graphene a very promising material for use in batteries and supercapacitors. Graphene may enable batteries and supercapacitors (and even fuel-cells) that can store more energy - and charge faster, too.
The advantages of graphene batteries
Coatings ,sensors, electronics and more
Graphene has a lot of promise for additional 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:
Researchers develop graphene/silicon carbide catalyst for selective CO2 to ethanol conversion
A research team, led by Profs. Chen Wei and Wei Wei from the Shanghai Advanced Research Institute (SARI) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has developed a novel graphene/silicon carbide (SiC) catalyst for efficient CO2 photoelectroreduction to ethanol (C2H5OH).
Using sunlight to produce valuable chemicals and fuels from carbon dioxide (CO2), i.e., artificial photosynthesis (AP), is a promising strategy to achieve solar energy storage and a negative carbon cycle. However, selective synthesis of C2 compounds with a high CO2 conversion rate remains challenging for current AP technologies. The composite catalyst in this work, which comprises SiC substrate, interfacial layer (IL), and few-layer graphene overlayer, can help to achieve the precise control of active intermediates for C-C coupling.
Haydale and City Energy develop graphene underfloor heating with Plumbase
Haydale has announced it is working with City Energy Network Limited and Plumbase Limited on developing and distributing its graphene underfloor heating ("UFH").
The ink heater technology applied to clothing worn by British athletes at the Tokyo Games has been applied in an initial prototype for domestic UFH with the potential to replace gas central heating and link into other energy efficient technologies.
Researchers develop a method for photo-mechanochemical synthesis of nanographenes in the solid-state
Professor Lars Borchardt’s team at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, has succeeded in carrying out light-driven chemical reactions in the solid-state without resorting heavily to solvents. The team stated that this provides a sustainable alternative to established synthesis methods.
Light is considered the ideal driving force of chemical reactions as it’s cheap, available in abundance and produces no waste. This is why light-driven, i.e. photochemical reactions are highly attractive for the production of chemical compounds. However, they are usually carried out in huge amounts of solvents that are often toxic and generate hazardous waste in enormous quantities. Solid-state photochemical reactions without solvents could present an alternative. However, they have hardly been feasible so far, as they could only be mixed insufficiently and so it was possible to scale them up to relevant quantities.
Researchers develop a graphene-based intelligent, wearable artificial throat that is sensitive to human speech and vocalization-related motions
A team of researchers at China's Tsinghua University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have developed a graphene-based intelligent, wearable artificial throat (AT) that is sensitive to human speech and vocalization-related motions. It is a wafer-like tool one centimeter square that can allow barely audible sounds, or even whispers, to be converted into speech at normal volume.
The device is about the width of plastic cling wrap. The 25-micrometer deep device may be applied to one's throat with a simple adhesive. Tiny wires connect to a microcontroller powered by a coin-sized battery.
HydroGraph signs LOI for a graphene-batteries project with CGT and LOLC
HydroGraph Clean Power, manufacturer of graphene and other nanomaterials, has announced a letter of intent (LOI) to form a partnership with Ceylon Graphene Technologies (CGT) via LOLC Advanced Technologies (LOLC AT), which owns a majority share of CGT through a joint venture with Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology (SLINTEC).
The partnership will center around a novel composite graphene blend that is said to improve the charge acceptance of lead acid batteries by 47%. HydroGraph and LOLC AT agreed to commercialize this product and pursue the lead acid battery market, projected to be worth more than $47 billion by 2030, driven in part by electric vehicle dependency on the product.
Researchers combine pMINFLUX, graphene energy transfer and DNA-PAINT for a super-resolution microscopy method for rapid differentiation of molecular structures in 3D
A team of researchers, led by Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) chemist Prof. Philip Tinnefeld, has combined 2D MINFLUX microscopy with a new method for axial resolution. This combination, which exploits the special properties of graphene, enables an axial precision of less than 3 angstroms.
It was only a few years ago that a resolution limit in optical microscopy which seemed fundamental was broken, when researchers overcame the resolution limit of around 250 nanometers (winning the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their efforts). Since then, the methods of microscopy have progressed rapidly.
Researchers' examination of surface oxygen in graphene materials may yield graphene-based products with better antibacterial activity
The amount of surface oxygen in graphene materials is a key factor in how effective they could be in killing bacteria – a discovery which may help to design safer and more effective products to combat antimicrobial resistance.
Researchers from the UK's University of Birmingham, China's Shandong University of Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and National Center for Nanoscience and Technology of China, NovaMechanics in Cyprus, Austria's Medical University of Innsbruck, University of Eastern Finland and Leiden University in the Netherlands have found that it is graphene oxide’s different interaction modes that lead to distinct antibacterial activity – with a ‘switch’ occurring when surface oxygen levels reach a certain threshold.
Graphene quantum dots could improve magnetic field sensors
Researchers from the University of California Santa Cruz, University of Manchester and Japan's International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics and National Institute for Materials Science have used a scanning tunnelling microscope to create and probe single and coupled electrostatically defined graphene quantum dots, to investigate the magnetic-field responses of artificial relativistic nanostructures.
Trapped electrons traveling in circular loops at extreme speeds inside graphene quantum dots are highly sensitive to external magnetic fields and could be used as novel magnetic field sensors with unique capabilities. Although graphene electrons do not move at the speed of light, they exhibit the same energy-momentum relationship as photons and can be described as "ultra-relativistic." When these electrons are confined in a quantum dot, they travel at high velocity in circular loops around the edge of the dot.
Edible graphene bio-sensors based on seaweed could take over the field of wearable health monitors
Scientists at the University of Sussex and the University of Brighton have developed health sensors using natural elements like rock salt, water and seaweed, combined with graphene.
Since they are made with ingredients found in nature, the sensors are fully biodegradable, making them more environmentally friendly than commonly used rubber and plastic-based alternatives. Their natural composition also places them within the emerging scientific field of edible electronics – electronic devices that are safe for a person to consume.
Versarien announces launch of Umbro's ProTraining Elite range incorporating its graphene technology
Versarien has announced the launch of Umbro's ProTraining Elite range, including garments incorporating the Company's Graphene-Wear technology.
Versarien has been working with Umbro since 2018 and these are the first products to be launched in Europe incorporating the Company's technology. Umbro's new ProTraining Elite long-sleeve running tops, baselayers and running tights have Versarien's Graphene-Wear ink formula printed on the inside. The Graphene-Wear formula features novel properties that will allow wearers to experience enhanced thermal transmittance, increased moisture management, with improved drying rate, without compromising air or water vapor permeability. In particular, these three garments will benefit significantly from applying Graphene-Wear as they are being worn in circumstances where maintaining core body temperature is more desirable and difficult to achieve. The garments also have Versarien's Graphene-Wear trademark applied.