81–90 of 111 posts
Yes. There’s not applicable commercially viable things based on graphene yet. But superconductivity will be a revolution in many ways and especially in computing.
Does anybody know if the environmental impact of graphene is supposed to be any better than that of plastic? Does it break down more easily as it is so thin? I’m worried we may outdo ourselves with the magic compound of the century...
Another major 'environmental' impact that may be very nefarious is the health effect of such nano-materials. We don't want to re-create all the mess that we have today form asbestos -- which was also a wonder-material at the time.
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Superconductivity would revolutionize transportation, low cost medical imaging with MRIs, and weapons. Lots of weapons.
You're forgetting the two most important; energy storage and transport.
Does anybody know if the environmental impact of graphene is supposed to be any better than that of plastic? Does it break down more easily as it is so thin? I’m worried we may outdo ourselves with the magic compound of the century...
* Carbon nanotubes may be as dangerous as asbestos for similar reasons. They act like spikes that stick into cells.
* Graphene nanoplatelets are shown to trigger the inflammatory response (in vivo and in vitro) in lung cells. Something that normal carbon black don't do.
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A huge amount of energy is wasted distributing electricity for 10s of thousands km. I am not sure how it can help storage though, even if you theoretically can let the electricity spin in a closed loop forever the energy density seems way too low to me.
Graphene based supercapacitors have huge capacitance because graphene is single atom thick, so you can put a lot of layer of this material increasing total surface area hence capacitance for same volume of capacitor space used.
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Also the cost of a equivalent superconductor network would be an order of magnitude more expensive that what is essentially room temperature metal cables with very basic technology - transformers, insulation, and switchgear.
A superconducting power network could be built today - it would consist of a pair of ceramic superconductors suspended in a liquid helium pipe, wrapped with 3 feet of insulation. Every few kilometers, one would need liquid helium pumping and chilling plants. Total helium losses to leakage wouldn't be too big. Electricity transmission efficiency would be reduced by all the chilling gear running, but still better than…
I feel like this could almost be a slogan for the human race at this point. Our grasp of science and engineering has reached a level where's there's very few things we might want to build where we couldn't conceivably do it. We could build the most outlandish megastructures, infrastructure and space bases if we really had to, but it all just costs too much.
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Graphene based supercapacitors have huge capacitance because graphene is single atom thick, so you can put a lot of layer of this material increasing total surface area hence capacitance for same volume of capacitor space used.
Here's to hoping my phone has enough milliamps to stay alive for more than 8 hours and that this happens in my lifetime. #firstworldproblems for sure but come on it would be really cool.
Holy guac, room temperature superconductivity seems almost science fiction-y but just imagine the disruption it would make. I would be particularly excited to experience how much electric motors and energy transfer/storage and conversion would improve.
Apparently they reached superconductivity at 3K. Hardly room temperature.
Can someone please write up TL;DR about the actual science without the details on what kind of coffee did the author sip while taking the interview?
Fairly shocking to me that Yuan Cao received literally a single glancing mention here, but he was clearly the one who actually made the pivotal discovery, and is the first author on the Nature paper ( https://www.nature.com/articles/nature26154 ), and was the one named to the Nature 10 in 2018 for his discovery. Really mind boggling that this entire piece focuses all the attention on his supervisor and almost neglect…
Usually the grad student does most of the work, but the ideas and direction comes from the supervisor. It's normal that the supervisor funds, directs and communicates the work that's being done. More often than not, the supervisor has a better idea of the big picture and the implications of the work than the grad student, so it's natural that the supervisor talks to the press. For example, I'm a grad student, in a de…