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Is graphene a miracle material?

news.bbc.co.uk

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Re: Is graphene a miracle material?

#41

Post by nazar »

jerf wrote: post #17
CoffeeDregs wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, The Graduate was exactly what I was thinking as I was typing my comment. ;) Edit: didn't reply to the bigger point about oil companies. I kinda threw that out there as a quick thought and agree with you that the semiconductor, semi-co materials, or LCD guys might be better positioned. That said, few companies are as good at gathering, refining, processing and shipping gigatons of carbon as the oil companies…

"That said, few companies are as good at gathering, refining, processing and shipping gigatons of carbon" That's abstracting too far. The food industry ships around gigatons of carbon too, which is just as "graphenic" as oil, namely, zero. Pencil manufacturers actually use graphene, but it seems unlikely they're going to lead this drive either.

I thought pencil manufacturers actually use graphite. From the article I understand that graphene pencil is only useful to write on steel sheets.

Re: Is graphene a miracle material?

#42

Post by hugh3 »

jerf wrote: post #17
CoffeeDregs wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, The Graduate was exactly what I was thinking as I was typing my comment. ;) Edit: didn't reply to the bigger point about oil companies. I kinda threw that out there as a quick thought and agree with you that the semiconductor, semi-co materials, or LCD guys might be better positioned. That said, few companies are as good at gathering, refining, processing and shipping gigatons of carbon as the oil companies…

"That said, few companies are as good at gathering, refining, processing and shipping gigatons of carbon" That's abstracting too far. The food industry ships around gigatons of carbon too, which is just as "graphenic" as oil, namely, zero. Pencil manufacturers actually use graphene, but it seems unlikely they're going to lead this drive either.

The bizarre part of the grandparent comment is that there is an industry devoted to the gathering, refining, processing and shipping of gigatons of graphite. It's called the coal industry.

Re: Is graphene a miracle material?

#43

Post by hugh3 »

SeoxyS wrote: post #34
icegreentea wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't most of motorcycle safety designed to a) make sure no part of you catches the ground and b) spread out the energy as much as possible (spatially and temporally)? Cause I don't think just sheets of graphene would be very good at dealing with energy dissipation. You might not be able to break the graphene sheets, but the energy would just transfer through to your body.

If the sheet of graphene can't be pierced, it would protect from the most common mild injury in motorcycle accidents: road rash. (Right?) It'd prevent direct contact with the road, it'd prevent your clothing being ripped off and your skin being turned into ground meat. Not that I really know what I'm talking about, but that was my line of thinking…

A sheet of graphene is one atomic layer thick. It's very easy to tear apart or pierce with any macroscopic object.

Re: Is graphene a miracle material?

#44

Post by jerf »

nazar wrote: post #41
jerf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That said, few companies are as good at gathering, refining, processing and shipping gigatons of carbon" That's abstracting too far. The food industry ships around gigatons of carbon too, which is just as "graphenic" as oil, namely, zero. Pencil manufacturers actually use graphene, but it seems unlikely they're going to lead this drive either.

I thought pencil manufacturers actually use graphite. From the article I understand that graphene pencil is only useful to write on steel sheets.

I had been led to believe by previous articles such as [1] that graphite contains graphene, albeit in small quantities and not in a useful state. The process of trying to produce a link to substantiate this has left me less sure whether it "contains" graphene, or if it merely can produce it under the circumstances described in the article. Given what it is and how much carbon gets around on this planet, it is perhaps hard to say what "contains" graphene in the first place, in much the same way I'm often a bit annoyed when someone counts every oxygen and two hydrogens anywhere in a compound as "water", regardless of how tied up they are.

[1]: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_702926...

Re: Is graphene a miracle material?

#45

Post by william42 »

MrJagil wrote: post #18
Sapient wrote: post #16

Optical computers, genetic catalogs, nanorepair modules--forget all of that. It's when you see a megaton of steel suspended over your head by a thread the thickness of a human hair that you really find God in technology. * Anonymous Metagenics Dockworker - MorganLink 3DVision Live Interview

I hate to be that guy but: "megaton |ˈmegəˌtən| noun a unit of explosive power chiefly used for nuclear weapons, equivalent to one million tons of TNT"

Yeah, a megaton means a megaton worth of TNT.

Re: Is graphene a miracle material?

#46

Post by chrjozefharibo »

rcxdude wrote: post #33
mkramlich wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking similarly. Based on past history, I expect them to rush to find all sorts of short-term profitable applications for it, build new products around it, and not really look at things like negative health or environmental consequences. There just isn't as much money to be made by finding reasons not to use it as there is in finding reasons to use it.

well, it is basically graphite, just with more consistent microstructure. I'm having a hard time thinking of ways in which it could be worse than graphite in terms of health or environmental concerns.

Graphene is a 2D material, like a sheet of paper. A carbon nanotube is more of a 1D material, like a pencil. Carbon nanotubes have (extremely) sharp points. A single wall carbon nanotube has a diameter of ±1.4nm. That is a lot smaller than the size of a cell. The danger of nanotubes in living organisms is that they can puncture cells. A graphene sheet cannot do that. That’s why nanotubes are potentially more harmful than graphene.

Re: Is graphene a miracle material?

#47

Post by mattmanser »

MrJagil wrote: post #23
Bud wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being that guy. Plus, you're wrong. Mega- is a standard SI prefix, and the use of "megaton" to denote one million tons is entirely correct. Yes, it's also true that "megaton" has a second meaning. This fact does not invalidate its other meaning. In fact, if you bother looking this up in actual dictionaries, you'll find that the normal mass definition is often listed first, and the explosive definition is liste…

Wow, sorry man. Didn't mean to waste your time/bother you. I just looked it up in the dictionary I had handy, as the wording seemed strange to me. In any case, I am glad I learned something new today!

It's also a quote from the computer game Alpha Centauri.

Re: Is graphene a miracle material?

#48

Post by geon »

hugh3 wrote: post #43
SeoxyS wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the sheet of graphene can't be pierced, it would protect from the most common mild injury in motorcycle accidents: road rash. (Right?) It'd prevent direct contact with the road, it'd prevent your clothing being ripped off and your skin being turned into ground meat. Not that I really know what I'm talking about, but that was my line of thinking…

A sheet of graphene is one atomic layer thick. It's very easy to tear apart or pierce with any macroscopic object.

A "sheet" doesn't neccesarily refer to the molecular structure. In this contex, it would mean several layers composited together.

Re: Is graphene a miracle material?

#49

Post by Unseelie »

jensnockert wrote: post #29
redthrowaway wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be correctly called a "megaton ne ", as SI prefixes aren't typically applied to imperial units?

For some reason, people write megaton and mean a metric megaton. Megaton as a TNT-equivalent also refers to a metric tonne. But (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri) is an American game and it could actually refer to a non-metric megaton

I believe the world portrayed used metric, though. They at least talk about nano-meters and etc in their blurbs.

Re: Is graphene a miracle material?

#50

Post by Unseelie »

redthrowaway wrote: post #27
ori_b wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's so much more than clock frequency. The place silicon shines isn't so much it's material properties for producing individual switches - they're good, but there's better out there. It's the raw manufacturability that silicon has. It's by far the easiest material to work with. It's abundant, cheap, and easy to obtain. It's got properties that lend it to easy junction doping and easy annealing. It's easy to depos…

How much of the ease of using silicon is due to its inherent properties, and how much is due to the many billions that have been sunk into R&D?

I'm going to hazard that a lot is based on inherent properties. probably 'most' of the ease. They were mucking around with silicon computers with basically hobby chemistry sets back in the fifties and sixties, where today, with some of the best materials science we have, we're only able to manipulate graphene on the nanoscale..
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