Blog

The advancement of technology has slowed considerably over the past few years due to the limitation placed on researchers with current manufacturing practices and available resources. Research into new conductive materials for uses in the boom of personal technology has taken a strain, but recent developments of the super element graphene have opened doors to otherwise unimaginable potential.

Graphene for the Future

Graphene is a one atom thick, yet two dimensional derivative of carbon, capable of a vast range of potential properties, with industry changing and world benefitting applications. In the past, economic concerns have plagued the use of the element, as it was extensive to utilize on technology so as to make it impractical. However, recent developments have greatly reduced the manufacturing costs of graphene, making it a more viable solution for the applications once thought too expensive.

Critical applications have bexen established to implicate simple and viable means for applying graphene to surfaces, removing the costly time factors once thought to be restrictive. Graphene can now actually be grown onto a surface, instead of the traditional roll and dry methods that plagued the industry in the past. This method was time consuming, and fraught with impurities and issxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxues deriving from the process. A certain amount of expected loss needed to be written into the application, and the costs made it impractical for large scale manufacturing.

Revolution in Application

Now having the ability to seed a surface and proliferate as a growing ‘organism’ impurities and errors are reduced significantly, as is the manpower required for the outdated application. Graphene growth can now be applied to flexible surfaces such as solar panels, cells, and super capacitors.

Electrical conductivity is highly efficient in the material, and as the world searches for replacement technologies to assist with moving toward a more sustainable approach to energy gathering and consumption, graphene is becoming more critical. The material looses negligible energy during transfer, and is highly resistant to corrosion caused by atmospheric gasses and water, unlike its predecessors.

Conductivity of Graphene

Solar cells are the primary application of graphene coated silicon wafers, as the elements has a high resistance to heat fatigue on an atomic level. The ability to now grow graphene onto a platform reduces the costs of manufacturing, allowing for greater productivity on the manufacturing end as well.

About SaMaterials: http://www.samaterials.com/

Stanford Advanced Materials (SAM) Corporation is a global supplier of a series of pure metals, alloys, ceramics and minerals such as oxides, chlorides, sulfides, oxysalts, etc. Our headquarter, located in Irvine, California, USA, was first established in 1994, starting to provide high-quality rare-earth products for research and development (R&D).

It has been observed that there is a virtual limitation to the field of technology as there is only talk about either changing or simply upgrading the level of technology. However there are very few efforts made to introduce a dimension in the field of technology.

The discovery of silicon was an important revelation in the field of technology. This is because of the fact that silicon had given an all new level to the field of technology. The electronic goods had not only made an impact in the industrial field but it had also changed our personal lives as well.

Every person uses electronic devices nowadays. However the biggest problems with such high level of use of such goods are that there needs to be more efficiency.

Modern research is showing that Graphene is perhaps the new wonder material. Graphene allows easy flow of electricity along with more reliability. It is not volatile even under extreme conditions. Thus the stability provided by it allows better scope of use. It can take more pressure as it is not chemically reactive. Thus its properties would not change with the change in conditions.

As Graphene has the capability not only to enhance electronic goods but also bring about a new dimension to it. This is because of the fact that it allows very easy flow of power. More importantly Graphene prevents the loss of power while transitioning. This reduces wastage, thus it allows quicker performances. Generally there was a conception that a good conductor like silver or copper would help in the performances but it was proved otherwise with non conductors. Graphene may not be the best conductor but it is certainly the most useful.

Graphene in the form of batteries are excellent for the purpose of recharge. They even have the capability to store power. As it does not consume much electricity it is helpful cutting power costs as well. We are certainly going to see a huge change in the field of electronics.

About SaMaterials: http://www.samaterials.com/

Stanford Advanced Materials (SAM) Corporation is a global supplier of a series of pure metals, alloys, ceramics and minerals such as oxides, chlorides, sulfides, oxysalts, etc. Our headquarter, located in Irvine, California, USA, was first established in 1994, starting to provide high-quality rare-earth products for research and development (R&D).

In 2004 two scientists, Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim, made a discovery that is expected to shape almost all aspects of future technologies – Graphene. Graphene has baffled all material science experts because it is actually the only existing 2-dimensional structure on earth. Simply put, unlike all other materials that have a length, width, and height, graphene only has a length and width. It is made up entirely of one layer of carbon atoms forming a honeycomb shape.

Don’t let all the scientific jargon make graphene appear as if it is an extraordinary material found exclusively in laboratories. It is a single layer of the same carbon atoms found in graphite, which is used to make pencil tips. What the scientists managed to do is slice the graphite until they were left with only a single layer of carbon atoms. Nonetheless, graphene has very impressively extraordinary properties; it is both the strongest and thinnest material on earth. Additionally, it is a fantastic conductor of electricity. Graphene is so strong that a single sheet stretched out over a table can be able to support the weight of a 10-ton truck with only a pencil between them.

History of graphene

The existence of graphene was conceptualized in 1859. The first time single graphite layers were seen was in 1947 by Eugene J. and Gordon Walter Semenoff through an electron microscope. Graphite is made up of 50 carbon layers. Various institutions and companies have already invested in the research of the material. It was believed that graphene could not exist as a stable free-form and no scientist had been able to strip the single carbon atom layer until 2004.

Potential uses of graphene

The main barrier to the adoption of graphene is the expense, mostly because of the difficult extraction process called exfoliation. In fact graphene was once among the most expensive materials in 2008 with a price tag of $100 million/cm2. Over time the price has dropped to $100/cm2 and it is expected to drop further because of the ever improving extraction process.

Some of the potential uses of graphene include:
• In military and personal defense to make superlight body armor and sports equipment.
• Flexible visual gadgets such as smartphones, TVs, and PCs.
• Improved batteries, fuel cells, and other energy storage gadgets.
• Improved efficiency of LED lighting, solar panels, and desalination tech.
• Improved ethanol distillation.
• Space travel vehicles.
• Manufacture of bionic devices.
• Graphene has great potential, and it will certainly revolutionize the world in the near future. Barely a decade after its discovery and it is expected to reach consumer markets because of the readily available raw material. Industrialists and scientists alike continue to explore the unlimited potential applications of graphene.

Graphene is a two dimensional allotrope of carbon with enormous potential to revolutionize the entire electronics industry. It is so unique that it is now the hardest, thinnest and best heat conducting material ever known. But is it really a wonder material or is it just another potential material in its research stage?

Graphene has excellent mechanical and electrical properties. Electrons travel at a very high speed as compared to other conductors. Graphene is transparent and yet dense. Moreover the efficiency of graphene is not affected by any external factors. Contrary to all other substances in this world that exist, graphene is 2D in nature. Hence many people consider this to be a marvel material or a wonder material but such hype is arguably premature.

Graphene has a host of disadvantages. For instance, if graphene is commercialized then we would never be able to switch devices off or control their operation as the speed of electrons inside graphene cannot be controlled.

Furthermore graphene is found to have toxic qualities therefore it can prove to be dangerous for human beings. As graphene is so thin it can easily penetrate the human bodies and reach our brains lungs or kidneys causing them to malfunction. It can reach the human body directly during its manufacture, through the use of electronic devices or even inhaled through the environmental channels. This toxicity can get into the environmental channels and have negative effects on ecology, flora and fauna. Hence utilization of graphene on a large scale should be done in such a way that it does not harm anyone or the environment.

We all agree that graphene has a lot of advantages over silicon and if implemented as a semiconductor we will get more efficient and cheap devices. More so the average temperature of any device will reduce by 13oC. But the current technology or machinery available does not support large scale graphene production. Hence we have to bring a radical change in the industry which will require an enormous capital, and voluminous know-how. To develop such a technology will take few decades and thus at present graphene cannot simply overrule silicon or suddenly emerge as a miracle in the industry.

About SaMaterials: http://www.samaterials.com/

Stanford Advanced Materials (SAM) Corporation is a global supplier of a series of pure metals, alloys, ceramics and minerals such as oxides, chlorides, sulfides, oxysalts, etc. Our headquarter, located in Irvine, California, USA, was first established in 1994, starting to provide high-quality rare-earth products for research and development (R&D).