Graphene, also known as the wonder material is considered one of the greatest discoveries of 21st century. It was properly isolated and characterized in 2004 by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov at the University of Manchester. This work resulted in the two winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. Since the early 2000s, a number of companies and research laboratories have been working to develop commercial applications of graphene.
Graphene is been around for more than a decade and I wonder where are all its wonders that we were promised? It is strong and light weight. And besides that, it is a brilliant conductor of heat and electricity. And because of its incredible properties, we were expecting things like ultralight airplanes, flexible foldable screens, enhanced batteries, lightning speed computers, bullet proof armours, fuel efficient cars, graphene-based medicines, and many more. Even things straight out of science fiction like the space elevators. So, what happened? Why did it failed to live up to the hype?
Well, the growth of graphene revolves mainly around two things: money and research. Before we move forwards let's talk about what it actually is. And why it is called the wonder material.
Graphene is an allotrope of carbon consisting of a single layer of atoms arranged in a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice. Layers of graphene stacked on top of each other for graphite. Graphene is the thinnest compound known to man at one atom thick, the lightest material known (with 1 square meter weighing around 0.77 milligrams), the strongest compound discovered (between 100-300 times stronger than steel with a tensile strength of 130 GPa and a Young's modulus of 1 TPa - 150,000,000 psi), the best conductor of heat at room temperature (at (4.84±0.44) × 10^3 to (5.30±0.48) × 10^3 W·m−1·K−1) and also the best conductor of electricity known (studies have shown electron mobility at values of more than 200,000 cm2·V−1·s−1). Other notable properties of graphene are its uniform absorption of light across the visible and near-infrared parts of the spectrum (πα ≈ 2.3%), and its potential suitability for use in spin transport.
Despite of all this, we don’t see it taking over the world already. The reason is, it is still very difficult to produce. And there are cheaper alternatives to it. For graphene to take over the world, it has to be much better than the existing technology. It has to have big advantage over what we have already.
But that does not mean we have not achieved anything in 15 years. Numerous researches have been going on since its discovery. And researchers have managed to bring down the price by a significant amount. Back in 2013, Nature reported that one micrometre-sized flake of graphene costed more than $1,000, which made graphene one of the most expensive materials on Earth. By the end of 2015, Deloitte estimated that the market price per gram was close to $100. One producer, NanoXplore, even estimates that graphene is now down to a cost of $0.10 per gram for good quality graphene, though this excludes graphene created through a CVD process (recognized as the highest level of quality available for bulk graphene).
As the price goes down, its application will continue to grow. And hence, we can say that the graphene revolution is already in motion. And in few years, we might actually be looking at some of its wonders.
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