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Will Graphene Revolutionize the 21st Century?

Posted by samzenpus on from the step-right-up dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Much has been made of graphene's potential. It can be used for anything from composite materials — like how carbon-fiber is used currently — to electronics. 'Our research establishes Graphene as the strongest material ever measured, some 200 times stronger than structural steel,' mechanical engineering professor James Hone, of Columbia University, said in a statement. If graphene can be compared to the way plastic is used today, everything from crisp packets to clothing could be digitized once the technology is established. The future could see credit cards contain as much processing power as your current smartphone."

77 of 345 comments (clear)

  1. Wolverine? by Tobenisstinky · · Score: 5, Funny

    How does that compare to Adamantium?

    --
    wha'? where am i?
    1. Re:Wolverine? by gront · · Score: 2

      Bout half that of dolomite

  2. Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by Btrot69 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Its probably got lots of other great uses, but the one I think of most is that its strong enough to make cables for a space elevator. That alone would be revolutionary.

    1. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oh get over it. We do not have anything near the capabilities or even materials for such a structure. And even if we did, space is still empty. All that work for what? Better access to emptiness? You have a very poor understanding of reality.

      And you have a very poor imagination and sense of exploration. If nothing else, it would make maintaining our orbital space much cheaper. Combined with solar sails and asteroid mining, this could make space exploration drop to almost free in terms of the cost to our planet.

      Then we could finally get off this rock so if we don't figure out how to make it work here, at least we have some options to start over with. Then again, from a moral perspective, I continue to wonder if we need to make it work here, before we start fucking up the rest of the galaxy.

    2. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by turbidostato · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And you have a very poor imagination and sense of "exploration."

      Or he has a stronger sense of reality than you.

      "If nothing else, it would make maintaining our orbital space much cheaper."

      Or not. You talked about imagination, let's test yours: can you imagine what could happen when you put a space elevator sweeping out a full of space debris low orbit at some few thousands miles per hour?

      "Then we could finally get off this rock so if we don't figure out how to make it work here, at least we have some options to start over with."

      Where? as per the grandparent, once you get there, you'll see it's still an emptiness. Are you meaning other planet within the Solar system? It'll take a bit more than graphene to stablish a self supporting colony there. Out the Solar system? It'll take a bit more than graphene to convince Einstein to allow us to go faster than light.

    3. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by Smallpond · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oh get over it. We do not have anything near the capabilities or even materials for such a structure. And even if we did, space is still empty. All that work for what? Better access to emptiness? You have a very poor understanding of reality.

      And you have a very poor imagination and sense of exploration. If nothing else, it would make maintaining our orbital space much cheaper. Combined with solar sails and asteroid mining, this could make space exploration drop to almost free in terms of the cost to our planet.

      Then we could finally get off this rock so if we don't figure out how to make it work here, at least we have some options to start over with. Then again, from a moral perspective, I continue to wonder if we need to make it work here, before we start fucking up the rest of the galaxy.

      Is that the same way that nuclear power was going to make electricity almost free? I've seen industry claims from the 50s that nuclear power would be so cheap they would stop putting meters on houses.

      A space elevator would be cool, but it would still be the most expensive thing to build and maintain ever.

    4. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by gmuslera · · Score: 2

      Our access to that emptyness had changed your life already, several times, and in things that you could think as essential for modern culture. Even if only is needed to put up there factories for medicines or materials that are pretty hard to be done with gravity will make a big difference. And once up there a lot of things are near, from asteroid mining to energy production in big escale.

    5. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2

      Sounds like you were in Queen Isabella's court. "That fool Columbus wants to sail west, when everything in the world is east of us? He'll just fall off the edge of the world, and good riddance!"

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    6. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by Unkyjar · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually they said something along the lines of,"Your estimates make the world too small, there's no way you can sail west and reach Asia in the short period of time you are proposing."

    7. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by turbidostato · · Score: 2, Informative

      "Asteroids, you fucking moron."

      Do you *really* mean stablishing a self-suficient colony on an asteroid? Because that's what we were talking about.

      And then again, what do you expect to get from an asteroid that would mean such a big difference for us down here on Earth? And if you talk about mining asteroids for our outer colonies you go back to square one again: it'll take a bit more than graphene to stablish a self-sufficient colony anywhere in the Solar system. And as long as you are not talking about a self-sufficient colony you still haven't broken ties to big old Earth.

    8. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by gilleain · · Score: 2

      Then again, from a moral perspective, I continue to wonder if we need to make it work here, before we start fucking up the rest of the galaxy.

      Hmm. Unfortunately, the more I learn about the scale of the Universe - or even the Milky Way - the less confident I am about human stellar travel in the near future. Or the remote future.

      There are lots of resources about this but here's one : http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/525347

      Actually, I hadn't realised the range of sizes of stars. Including the one that would take "1,200 years to travel round in a plane". This is still massively smaller than the distance to the Oort cloud, itself a fraction (1/40th?) of the distance to the nearest star. Really, our everyday experience is confined to the thin slice of scale between (say) mm and tens/hundreds/thousands of Km. If the subatomic world is the 'lower' - very empty - third of the total, and the cosmic is the upper third, then we directly experience only about the middle third of the middle third...

    9. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by aurizon · · Score: 3, Funny

      There is merit in this, as the Space Elevator concept would allow a low cost per pound into space, once the first cost is paid off. There has been a lot of chatter about this in the past, but until now, no material was ever up to the task. One problem was the inability of strong fine filaments to be bound into bundles and still keep their strength - a problem graphene may also encounter. A more down to earth application is unopenable crisp(potato chip) packets to be used as a diet aid for fatties, providing exercise and denying access...

    10. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by tmosley · · Score: 4, Informative

      Wow, you really don't know much, do you?

      A space elevator here would allow us to have daily launches to Mars, the asteroids, and beyond, using basically no fuel (using the Earth's angular momentum). SImilar space elevators could be built on the Moon, Mars, and Jupiter's moons, meaning we could then use them to fling material back to Earth. Multiple elevators==dozens or hundreds of launches per day, and with a properly designed elevator, literally no fuel expended (ie one that unfurls continuously from the ground--this will be possible with new methods of mass production of graphene coming online now that are controlled by air flow, and can thus be made continuously).

      Christ, you sound like a Jester in the court of Isabella making fun of Columbus for wanting to go to an empty continent. Even empty, it is a giant virgin mine waiting to be tapped. Colonies will form there quickly enough with regular travel established.

      And debris at LEO are no problem, any more than they are for current ships. You will need to maneuver the ribbon around the debris while a lifter is going up. The rest of the time, they can just be allowed to impact the ribbon, as it is basically bulletproof.

      HURP, DERES NUTTIN OUT DERE!

    11. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by Joce640k · · Score: 3, Funny

      That's cruel.

      The packets don't have to be unopenable, it just has to take more energy to open them than you'll get from eating the contents.

      --
      No sig today...
    12. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by tmosley · · Score: 4, Interesting

      How about silver, which projections have shown that we will be OUT OF in twenty years? How about any number of other raw materials, where we can put the environmental disaster out into space where it won't do any damage, and allow the Earth to become a clean, green paradise? How about rather than trying to centrally plan a colony on an asteroid before we get there, we just let people go out there and mine whatever is profitable, and form their own colonies?

      And you don't NEED to "break ties" with Earth. It's called trade, and it built the world we know out of a world or primitive barbarism..

    13. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by tmosley · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Uhhh, except this technology is the only one we were lacking, and we have it now.

      In space, there are resources. Lots of them. There are places where you can stick a 4000 square mile array of solar panels that will be lit for all but a few minutes each year. There are infinite amounts of metals, and fissile materials. There is SPACE to establish a new home for those sick of the Earth and her decadent ways.

      But thanks for deciding what is best for everyone, and what is even possible. We really appreciate it.

    14. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by wagnerrp · · Score: 3, Informative

      Technically, that would be two-stage to orbit, with the first stage being the 'jettisoned' launch rail. You can't just 'pull back' once you hit the end of the rail. At hypersonic speeds, you would spend tens of seconds in low, dense atmosphere doing so, and would bleed off much of your initial launch energy. If you instead use a vertical rail, you would need depths of tens of miles in order to achieve the speeds needed for a a scramjet to operate without imposing too high acceleration on the crew.

      Mass driver/scramjet launches are a possibility for cargo loads, but unless we come up with some form of artificial gravity, they could never be used for manned launches.

    15. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by wagnerrp · · Score: 2

      The space elevator has merit for getting into equatorial and escape orbits. While that would be a boon for the large communications and observation satellites in geostationary, LEO satellites are largely at high inclinations. It would cost more in delta-v to take a satellite up on a space elevator and attempt a plane transfer into polar orbit, than it would be to simply launch directly from Earth. Your best bet might be to travel well out past geostationary, using the elevator as a whip to launch you into a lunar transfer orbit, and then using the Moon to facilitate the plane transfer, combined with a heat shield and aerocapture to dump you into the desired orbit.

      It would be a great stepping stone for getting to the rest of the solar system, but it's certainly not a one size fits all solution to all of spaceflights woes.

    16. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by Ironhandx · · Score: 3, Informative

      Heres the thing: If it wasn't for anti-nuclear nutjobs, which they couldn't predict, those promises would probably be a reality by now. We're about 15-20 years behind in nuclear power research due to anti-nuclear nutjobs preventing funding of new more efficient, less dangerous nuclear plants.

      Funny part is, those same nutjobs are the ones that are also responsible for keeping the old, less-safe designs going, as there is nothing to replace them.

    17. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by HungryHobo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      something can be expensive to build and maintain and still be worth the money many times over.
      the US rail and road networks are incredibly expensive to build and maintain yet they're worth the cost.

      Now I couldn't even take a guess as whether it could be worth the cost since we don't even know what a space elevator might cost so I'm going to stick to fairly safe and general statements and simply argue that there are a lot of possibilities unless a space elevator would cost trillions.

      there's a hell of a lot of possibly very valuable applications if you could ship things to orbit for a very low price.

      orbital power arrays would be fairly sensible and could even be cheaper long term than some of the current energy production methods: get even a fraction of the world energy market and you'd be able to make/save a lot of money.
      There's some added advantages with zero pollution etc
      If it's one country building the elevator they could almost monopolize the market for a fair amount of time and rake in money building arrays for other countries.

      Once you build one elevator any more become far cheaper to build so much of the construction costs of the first could be spread out over multiple such elevators.

      any country which can ship lots of hardware into space for a low cost would also gain a significant military advantage: it's hard to build a bunker which can survive a thick tungsten bar dropped from orbit.

      There's pretty much the whole current worldwide market for launching satellites for communication and anything else which you'd pretty much take over.

      So you've got the energy market, the military market, the current space market and probably quite a few I've not thought of for income and those are big big markets.

    18. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by msauve · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "How about silver, which projections have shown that we will be OUT OF in twenty years? "

      Really? Alchemy works? What is all the silver getting transmuted to?

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    19. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by Iamthecheese · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It makes me sad that you were modded interesting. Your argument is shortsighted blather with a whiff of ad hominem.

      We all know what space is (huge, mostly empty, dangerous) but only you fail to acknowledge what it isn't. (an unsurmountable obstacle) People like you tried to stopped people from flying. The fact that technology isn't advanced enough to conquer space* without unacceptable sacrifice proves nothing about tomorrow.

      *Yes I said "conquer space". There are tremendous resources to be exploited and a universe of possibilities and I'm sorry you're too stuck in your pessimism to see that.

      --
      If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
    20. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by turbidostato · · Score: 2

      "How about silver, which projections have shown that we will be OUT OF in twenty years?"

      What will it be transmuted into?

      "How about any number of other raw materials"

      Like uhhh... And remeber they not only need to be there, they need to be cheaper too.

      "where we can put the environmental disaster out into space where it won't do any damage"

      Like... how? A big graphene chimney from industrial complexes out to space?

      "How about rather than trying to centrally plan a colony on an asteroid before we get there, we just let people go out there and mine whatever is profitable, and form their own colonies?"

      No problem for me with that. And good luck with your profitability plans unless big dad g'vment goes into the equation.

      "And you don't NEED to "break ties" with Earth."

      When the argument is "we need to go to space in case Earth gets destroyed" then yes, you need to be able to survive without the Earth to claim a win.

    21. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by wagnerrp · · Score: 2

      Yes. 50 miles or more in what direction? Our deepest mines only go a few miles down, and even if you build up the side of a mountain, and down well below it, you're going to run into increasing temperature and eventually break through the mantle. As I mentioned, it must be an inclined track, because if you try to launch horizontally, you're just going to end up wasting gobs of energy in huge aerodynamic losses over the hundred or so miles it takes to pull up out of the atmosphere. You would be lucky to break even.

    22. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by wagnerrp · · Score: 4, Informative

      You don't understand. It's not like an airplane that you can deflect off the atmosphere. In two-body mechanics, the only way to change plane is direct thrusting with the engines. Gravity potential and aerodynamic losses of a LEO launch are only going to cost about 15% of the total delta-v budget. The rest is going to go into achieving orbital velocity. During a 90 plane change, your budget will be roughly 1.4 times your orbital velocity. Thus, a 90 plane change will be roughly 20% more expensive than getting to the same orbit from the ground. Note that is expense rated in delta-v, and actual fuel costs will be measured exponentially from that. Add into that your not-insignificant insertion burn coming off the elevator, and there's simply no purpose to it.

    23. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by jo_ham · · Score: 4, Insightful

      For the exact reasons we've been talking about, and things like graphene have been hinting at; we don't have the materials to make a space elevator. We have the know how, and the imagination and opportunities with the sorts of things we could do if we had one, but so far have been unable to build one since the strongest material we have is just not strong enough to be useful (at least, not without it being absurdly heavy and impractical).

      Seems sort of obvious, really. We launch things into space right now at huge cost that modern society has come to rely on and at the very least expect - satellites (GPS, communications, TV, weather, science), and we're limited in what else we can send up there due to the huge cost of working against the Earth's gravity well by brute forcing it. Even if we don't decide to go out and mine asteroids, or mine helium from the moon, launching satellites that we use right now every single day for hundreds of reasons would be considerably cheaper with an elevator that exploited the angular momentum of the Earth... if you can find a material that is strong enough to built it out of.

    24. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by Surt · · Score: 2

      Once you have cheap access to space, it's no longer necessary (or really possible) to 'fuck up' in the sense that you mean. You can, for example, cheaply toss your undesired fusion power byproducts / other toxic sludges in the nearest star without consequence. The notion of conservation becomes meaningless.

      --
      "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
    25. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by wagnerrp · · Score: 2

      Where did you learn your orbital mechanics? No one in their right mind would even consider doing that directly unless time was very very precious, and fuel delivered to orbit was $3.899/gallon. By using the elevator we've been talking about for a decade or more to get to a lunar circumnavigation launch when the cable is released, that 90 degree plane change can be done with only enough delta-V to take you above or below the moon, and enough to fiddle it to perfect your polar orbit once you have used the moon for a slingshot.

      I did mention that as a possibility up here

      Your best bet might be to travel well out past geostationary, using the elevator as a whip to launch you into a lunar transfer orbit, and then using the Moon to facilitate the plane transfer, combined with a heat shield and aerocapture to dump you into the desired orbit.

    26. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by wagnerrp · · Score: 2

      I suspect that the underlying error is failing to recognize that the top of a space elevator is in geosynchronous orbit. Moving at orbital velocity, at an altitude of 22,000 miles.

      If I'm going to be corrected, I'm going to get pedantic. The center of mass (not the top) of a space elevator is in geostationary orbit. Geosynchronous is a type of orbit, but geostationary is one specific geosynchronous orbit. The difference is important here.

      All that is needed to launch another satellite from there into a low Earth orbit of 300 to 1500 miles is a short burn to put the bird into an orbit that grazes the atmosphere, some heat shielding, and some atmospheric control surfaces. And a good computer program that will handle multiple dips into the atmosphere to both shed excess velocity and use the control surfaces to alter direction.

      That would be foolish. Forget the initial transfer burn. Just detach at some point below geostationary, where your periapsis grazes the atmosphere.

      At an orbit of 22,000 miles altitude, there is more than enough potential energy to move a bird into any LEO. The general problem is one of shedding excess energy in a very controlled way.

      You're completely missing the whole point I was trying to make. Changing altitude is trivial. Even without your aerobraking maneuver, there's only a couple km/s difference between LEO and GEO. That's not the hard part. The hard part are the plane changes. Back to my point that a space elevator would be geostationary, that means it's over the equator. The vast majority of LEO satellites are at a high orbit inclination, to allow them to pass over the bulk of Earth's surface. Even using a lifting body during your braking maneuver, you're not likely to get more than a couple degrees deflection off equatorial. As mentioned, in two-body mechanics, your only remaining option is to carry the fuel necessary to perform the change. Somewhere around 70 inclination, you reach parity with just launching from the surface.

      That is in traditional two-body mechanics. The only way around that would be to introduce a third body into the equation, the Moon. You use the space elevator (that still exists well out past geostationary) to launch you around the Moon, and back towards Earth on a polar orbit. Now when you do this, the factor of difficulty goes up by a shitton. The sheer distances involved means you're going to have to be far more accurate on your orbital calculations. Due to differences between the Moon's orbital inclination, and the Earth's axial tilt, there are only going to be a couple times a year where you can hit the proper launch angle for the free return and proper insertion. That means each time one of these launch windows opens, there will be a small flotilla of satellites all staged out on the end of this elevator, and launched in rapid succession. Flying that many satellites over that distance in such close proximity is extremely difficult.

      Simply put, there's a whole lot more to solve than just getting the thing up there. A functional space elevator would be great, and the promise of cheap access to space would enable a whole new field of possibilities. But space is big, and it's not always easy to get from one place to the next. Depending on where you want to go, getting out of a gravity well and into one orbit does not necessarily mean you're any closer to your destination.

    27. Re:Strong enough to make cables for Space elevator by tmosley · · Score: 2

      My God you are stupid. No, this is not like saying Columbus could had a boat if he had a molecule of lignin. It's like saying he had a boat if he had a boat, the raw materials for lignin, and a method of mass production (which has been developed for graphene in the last few months) that he could have a ship ready fairly soon, and that they should probably start thinking about an expedition.

      Who the fuck are you to tell me what is for me and what isn't? You are a good example of the decadence of Western culture. You don't NEED to drill holes in asteroids. You just strip mine them. There isn't any environment to damage. Hell, nuke it and drop the leftover bits into a reactor to separate out what you want. Christ, if you had been around in Spanish court you would have made the same dumbshit arguments about further exploration after Columbus' first voyage. "They're just a bunch of savages over there, there's no point in going", and Spain would never have become a superpower, and would have been passed up by the countries that weren't so damned cowardly.

      Yeah, Earth does have "ways". Idiots like you have set yourselves into seats of power to tell us what we can or can't do in every way imaginable. You have made us weak and stupid. You would condemn all of humanity to live the rest of their now assuredly short existence in her cradle.

      Funny, you can't even spell "guarantee", but you are trying to tell me how stupid I am. Go cry to mommy. Let the adults do the thinking. If people like you had ruled humanity, we would all still be living in Africa, a single tiny tribe on the verge of extinction. No fire. No tools. What has gone in the past is good enough for the future. You would have "guaranteed" that the world ended on the other side of the mountains. You would have "guaranteed" me that men couldn't build canoes much less great ships. You would have SCOFFED at the notion that man could fly through the sky.

      So I'll tell you what. You can take your "guarantee", which is backed by nothing but the empty words of a foolish coward who would bet against humanity, and shove it up your ass.

  3. I'd sure hope so by Xacid · · Score: 2

    Personally I think there's a lot of potential with it. However, I'm curious if it's going to end up being something like asbestos that makes it a bittersweet kind of substance.

    I do think we need something to propel our sciences forward to "the next level (tm)" and graphene just may help get us there.

    1. Re:I'd sure hope so by Smallpond · · Score: 4, Funny

      asbestos isn't bittersweet, it doesn't taste like much of anything.

  4. The future by Fuzzums · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The future could see credit cards contain as much processing power as your current smartphone."

    So I'll have to wait 5 minutes before my credit card finally has booted?

    --
    Privacy is terrorism.
    1. Re:The future by sosume · · Score: 2

      I see smartphones becoming the size of a credit card within the next 10 years, graphene or no graphene.

    2. Re:The future by SilverHatHacker · · Score: 2

      In my opinion, smartphones have too much processing power as it is. Will these credit cards be able to stream HD video and run apps, but be serious overkill for actually making purchases?

      --
      Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
    3. Re:The future by Rockoon · · Score: 2

      You pull out your credit card to make a purchase and out of its speaker comes "Good Morning SilverHatHacker! What a beautiful day it is! I see that you are at a Walmart store location. Would you like to hear about special Walmart promotional offers that are exclusive to this MasterSmartCard? Just look at all the wonderful things that you can save money on today! Tap the information icon on any one of these exciting offers!"

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    4. Re:The future by Fuzzums · · Score: 2

      SUDDENLY a voice comes out of your pocket. It's your credit card shouting at you!
      HEY YOU!! People who bought that e-book also bought that other e-book. What do you think you're doing here? Go back to that site and buy that other e-book as well!!!

      --
      Privacy is terrorism.
    5. Re:The future by The+Dawn+Of+Time · · Score: 2

      Yeah, and the technology roapmap is generally built around the needs of people who think computing reached its nadir in the 70s.

    6. Re:The future by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 2

      Yeah, and the technology roapmap is generally built around the needs of people who think computing reached its nadir in the 70s.

      Yeah, anybody who thinks that technology was at it's lowest point in the 70s, clearly does not understand the history of technology and is unlikely to to be able to predict the future of technology.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    7. Re:The future by obscuro · · Score: 2

      You mean the direction that smart phones should have gone in the first place? Leave the phone itself as a fairly dumb device. Stuff it into a headset, with a big battery, voice command, and little power hungry processing power. Remove all long range communications from the big clunky handheld device, ....

      I'd like the thing doing the long range microwave communications to be a few feet from my head. I don't care how big the cell transceiver is but I don't want it in my f**king ear.

      --
      Every rule has more than one consequence.
  5. Nope by papabob · · Score: 2, Interesting

    an industrial revolution, by definition, came by things completely unexpected. Laser, silicon, etc. When grapehene can be produced massively it will already be "the Next Big Thing in 5-10 years" for the previous 50 years.

  6. Well said, Dr. Avouris by sfranklin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At the end of the article: "But the main thing is to be truthful and not exaggerate because we actually have to deliver." When there are some real-world examples, then graphene will be worth reading about.

    --
    Skip Franklin
    It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black. -- despair.com
  7. For those too lazy to RTFA by pushing-robot · · Score: 2

    Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you - just one word.
    Ben: Yes sir.
    Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
    Ben: Yes I am.
    Mr. McGuire: Graphene.
    Ben: Exactly how do you mean?
    Mr. McGuire: There's a great future in graphene. Think about it. Will you think about it?
    Ben: Yes I will.
    Mr. McGuire: Shh! Enough said. That's a deal.

    --
    How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
  8. Processing power in credit card by michelcolman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't smartphones already have all their processing power contained inside something smaller than a credit card? The rest is just battery, screen, antenna,...

    1. Re:Processing power in credit card by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Basically yes.

      The battery and the screen eat up the most space. The antenna is, thanks to Nokia, folded into a much smaller space (AFAIK they have a patent on this).

    2. Re:Processing power in credit card by Shin-LaC · · Score: 2

      Wait, you mean Nokia patented fractals?

  9. Graphene will never be used for strong materials.. by MagusSlurpy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...because the difference between graphene and graphite is that graphene is one atom thick, bypassing the sheet-on-sheet sliding that makes graphite such a wonderful lubricant. If you want multiple sheets to be used in a material and still have some structural stability, you have to cross-link the atoms, which just gives you diamond (or amorphous carbon, if it's half-assed).

    No, if graphene is the material of the 21st century, it will be entirely because of its electronic properties, not the mechanical.

    --
    My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
  10. Ultracapacitors by Suiggy · · Score: 4, Informative

    I personally can't wait for graphene based ultracapacitors. They're reaching capacitances of 100,000 farads/kg in the lab which is just absolutely insane for a capacitor.

    1. Re:Ultracapacitors by CODiNE · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That's what I love so much about graphene. It was just sitting there all those years and nobody thought of it. I remember being in electronics class years ago when we calculated the size of a capacitor that could power an electric car for a certain distance. It was HUGE. Yet we all knew the formula for capacitance and nobody came up with even ultracapacitors. Finally with graphene capacitors are going to get an incredible leap in what they can do... and all that time it was right under our noses.

      --
      Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
    2. Re:Ultracapacitors by aurizon · · Score: 2

      ultracapacitors can beat batteries in speed, but not in capacity. They are inherently inferior to batteries in charge storage because the batteries actually change a bulk material through a chemical state to store/release electrons, and since you cannot release the ones on the bottom before the top ones are changed = a practical limit. You can make batteries with huge surface areas but they suffer from dendritic grown that penetrates the insulation on repeated charge/discharge cycles. Preventing dendritic growth adds other burdens that reduce density.
      Ultracapacitors with high voltage insulation allow for higher charge density, but they also suffer from the charge equation charge = 1/2 CV2
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitance, that means that as you draw off charge the voltage falls, it is an analog to a spring running down

    3. Re:Ultracapacitors by tyrione · · Score: 2

      That's what I love so much about graphene. It was just sitting there all those years and nobody thought of it. I remember being in electronics class years ago when we calculated the size of a capacitor that could power an electric car for a certain distance. It was HUGE. Yet we all knew the formula for capacitance and nobody came up with even ultracapacitors. Finally with graphene capacitors are going to get an incredible leap in what they can do... and all that time it was right under our noses.

      The power of the Universe is right under our noses. We're not so much as inventing technology as we are inventing our first awareness that it has been there all along.

  11. Cautiously Optimistic by gone.fishing · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think graphene will probably fulfill some promises and fall flat with others. Since carbon (which graphene is) is a semiconductor I am more hopeful for it to become an efficient electronic resource. Because it is a semiconductor, I am less hopeful that it will become a better battery (carbon has been used in batteries for years but it's electrical leakage eventually drains an unused battery). As a material I expect that it will have the same shortcomings that carbon fiber has - in order to be strongest it needs to be pure which has proven difficult to achieve and therefore expensive. Graphene itself is expensive to manufacture. Is it even possible to chain it together to make long chains of it? I don't know but do know it is hard to do it with carbon fiber. What are the health consequences of making it, using it, or wearing it? So many things seem promising but end up being very bad (asbestos, lead, VOC's) that I am not sure it will launch. Seems like a submicroscopic sharp hard item may cause problems in the lungs.

  12. Re:Graphene based electronics by MrL0G1C · · Score: 2
    From the article -

    But companies like IBM and Nokia have also been involved in research. IBM has created a 150 gigahertz (Ghz) transistor - the quickest comparable silicon device runs at about 40 Ghz.

    --
    Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
  13. Wait for the patent trolls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wait for the patent trolls to join the party and tell me which century this will revolutionize.

  14. Re:Graphene will never be used for strong material by TheLink · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Can't you roll up graphene sheets like rolling up a sheet of paper, or multiple sheets of paper? Would you get structural stability that way?

    --
  15. Remember carbon nanotubes? by Bender_ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A few years ago all the rage was about carbon nanotubes. An entire generation of phd students was raised on this material. Carbon nanotubes were the material of the future, enabling the space elevator, nanoscale transistors, near-superconductor conductivity and so on. What is left today?

    Even before that there were C60 buckyballs, another previously unnoticed carbon allotrope. Buckyballs were set to revolutionize chemistry and were (are) part of n-type organic semicunductors. What is left today?

    A fad is a fad, even in science. Of all the imagined applications a few will remain, and will be turned into real applications by technologists and engineers. The scientists will move on to the next fad - well at least those who are quick enough.

    1. Re:Remember carbon nanotubes? by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 2

      Orrrrrr......you are just not involved in the field so you are completely unaware of what is going on post sensationalist-journalist phase.

    2. Re:Remember carbon nanotubes? by gront · · Score: 2
      All of the structures are related. Graphene is the one atom thick sheet stuff. Nanotubes are the sheets rolled into... tubes. Buckyballs are the sheets in a ball. Each has its its purpose: Graphene is a great conductor and really strong in two dimensions, Nanotubes are also great transmitters of heat and electricity in one dimension, and buckyballs can in theory be used for medicines, abrasives, or little tiny bearings. http://cnx.org/content/m14355/latest/

      all of this is relatively new, but having a way to make graphene inexpensively and reliably in any lab (the whole scotch tape pencil method) allows researches all over the world to make some and study it. As for being a "fad", as TFA states, the scientists aren't promising the next big thing, but are tempering excitement with caution.

  16. Except, of course.... by DG · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...that most of the technologies used in your "self-sustainable" lifestyle are the result of recent developments and investments in new technologies, most of which have been about pushing down the costs of the tech involved.

    Your solar array? Only became feasible at the individual installation level in the last five years (and is improving rapidly) due to heavy R&D investment. Ditto that windmill (arguably, that's more about moving the industrial base to China and the associated cost savings - unless you have carbon fiber blades).

    And that's ignoring the effect of cheap and powerful computers on design - affordable solid form CAD, FEA, CFD, and ubiquitous CAM means that anybody can buy Solidworks, MasterCAM, and a HAAS 3-axis mill and start making chips at a startup cost that is a tiny fraction of what that capability cost even 10 years ago.

    Unless you are mining your own ore, smelting your own raw materials, logging your own trees, growing your own seed (and your own fertilizer) your are as much a part of "the system" as the rest of us; a couple of solar panels be dammed.

      DG

    --
    Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
  17. Cringley comes to mind by shoppa · · Score: 2

    The future could see credit cards contain as much processing power as your current smartphone.

    If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside. -- Robert X. Cringley

    1. Re:Cringley comes to mind by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

      Which is why all reasonably competent motorists store a failover family in a second, redundant, car. It just isn't economic to pay for extra reliability in a single unit when you can get six lanes of virtually disposable vehicles for the same money and cluster them with commodity bitumen.

      Send my love to spouse_02!

  18. Re:Graphene will never be used for strong material by grumbel · · Score: 3, Informative

    Can't you roll up graphene sheets like rolling up a sheet of paper, or multiple sheets of paper?

    Yes, that would be carbon nano-tubes. However last time we played around with tiny incredible strong tubes that didn't turn out to well. Have to wait and see how things work out for carbon nanotubes.

  19. Re:Graphene will never be used for strong material by TheLink · · Score: 2

    There's also this: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/04/020429072519.htm

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  20. Re:Wait, graphene is a semi conductor? by gront · · Score: 3, Informative

    Graphene ribbons respond very well to changes in voltage making them very nifty (possibly) for transistors. Great flow when you want it in a controllable way. The main issue being that they don't have a very good "off" state. So you get a nice curve of voltage v. current flowing across them, except for the middle part around 0V. That's what everyone is working on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene#Graphene_transistors http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/graphene-transistors-cant-be-turned-off-wont-replace-silicon-in-processors-20110124/

  21. Re:Graphene will never be used for strong material by Velox_SwiftFox · · Score: 2

    --
    My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
    --
    Abalone shells manage to be incredibly tough by bonding layers of hard plates between flexible ones. A composite of sheets of graphene and noncarbon atomic layers binding them sounds interesting. I wouldn't be astonished if someone made a superconductor that way.

  22. Re:Graphene will never be used for strong material by florescent_beige · · Score: 2

    Current carbon fiber gets its strength from carbon "lamellae" which are a micostructural feature of the fiber itself. That is, inside the fiber are regions that are amorphous carbon and regions that are organized into sheets. If you wanted to make a structural material using graphene sheets this might be what you would do. But we already have it. So why isn't it taking over the world?

    Beware of grandiose claims about strength. You could accurately say current carbon fiber is 10 times stronger than steel, but you don't see any real-world things made out of cfrp that are 10 times stronger than an equivalent steel part even on a weight basis. That's because going from microstructure to macro-structure is a long and winding road and includes also the weakest parts, not just the strongest parts that everyone likes to talk about.

    --
    Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
  23. "Potential" = Speculation by BoRegardless · · Score: 2

    The article cited a lot of facts, theory and experimental work being done, but not one item about a physical product used in production.

    "Will Graphene Revolutionize the 21st Century?": The answer is cost effective applications of graphene will be the sole determinant.

  24. I propose a game: by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The game is called "The Cynic's 4 Color Puzzle".

    1. Obtain an outline map of the world, preferably black and white.

    2. Select four colors. 1, 2, 3, and 4.

    3. Fill all areas of the world that you expect to be nigh-unimaginably futuristic(routine occurrence of transhumans, strong AIs, kilometer high metamaterial structures, etc.) in 2061 with color 1.

    4. Fill all areas of the world that you expect to be surprisingly mundane in 2061, except for a few of those wacky details that futurists never get right(everybody is still working in cubicles and flying aging 787s; but something as unexpected as facebook would have been in 1950 occupies 30% of the cube-dweller's time), with color 2.

    5. Fill all areas of the world that will still be "developing" in 2061(the local elites will have access to everything from the color 2 zones, and color 1s, if present; but the bulk of the populace will still be mired in such classics as mud farming, Kalashnikovs, and nokias) with color 3.

    6. Fill all areas of the world that will be radically dystopian and/or uninhabitable for cool reasons(radical climate shifts/flooding, nanite plague, biotech advances make new strains of smallpox and anthrax and friends as common as new malware is today, etc.) with color 4.

    7. Argue at length about one another's maps.

    1. Re:I propose a game: by sgtrock · · Score: 2

      Make sure you study the historical trends documented at http://www.gapminder.org/>Gapminder.Org before beginning your coloring. :-)

    2. Re:I propose a game: by funkatron · · Score: 2

      OK, lets play

      1. Barcelona (I like Barcelona), Camden (it thinks it's there already), my house, Japan

      2. Isle of Wight, Hollywood, Antarctica

      3. New Jersey, Middle East

      4. 30 Millbank (I'm an optimist)

      What do I win?

      --
      "Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
    3. Re:I propose a game: by ian_from_brisbane · · Score: 2

      Obtain an outline map of the world

      You mean a circle?

  25. right under our noses by beernutz · · Score: 2

    Literally. Pencil lead!

    8)

    --
    (stolen from DaBum) I am dyslexia of borg - your ass will be laminated.
  26. Graphene's True Potential - Cat Hammocks by hedgemage · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "According to the Nobel prize committee, a hypothetical one-metre-square hammock of perfect graphene could support a four-kilogram cat - the hammock would weigh 0.77 milligrams, less than a cat's whisker, and would be virtually invisible." - Richard Van Noorden, Nature Magazine

    I'm glad that someone is addressing the need for invisible cat hammocks. FINALLY!

  27. Conductor issues by Xeranar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The article makes a rudimentary statement about graphene and fails to acknowledge that it is a conductor and not a semiconductor. That limits some of its use without using it in a complex composite to create a limited semiconductor material. As it stands now though graphene would be excellent for power transfer and screen technology. I think it will certainly establish a change in the way technology is used as chips grow smaller and screens grow larger and more flexible. We could see folding screens in a few years which would be an amazing improvement over our current systems. Laptops could be equipped with unfolding screens. Smartphones could so the same. Home theaters could become portable in a quite interesting and unique way.

    In other words, it will revolutionize the 21st century as our viewing technology makes a giant leap forward but silicon is going to be the dominant semiconductor for atleast the next decade or so while they work out a graphene composite that can cut some of its conductor properties. But graphene could be the answer to the wall viewers, curved displays, and other super-sized designs.

  28. Re:Largest sheet yet produced? by gront · · Score: 3, Interesting

    40" sheet by samsung. http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20110125/189014/

  29. Re:Original Slashdot article? by Coolhand2120 · · Score: 2

    Nova Ep. 2 Making Stuff Smaller @ 21:30.

    http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Making_Stuff_Nova_Making_Stuff_Cleaner/70171398?trkid=2429429

    How to make Graphene with a piece of scotch tape.

  30. That's the last thing we need by cjonslashdot · · Score: 2

    "The future could see credit cards contain as much processing power as your current smartphone."

    Heaven help us. Then literally nothing will work anymore. I shudder every time I use a "smart" appliance. To me, a "smart" appliance - one with an embedded computer - is something that needs occasional reboots, contains concurrency bugs and therefore gets into undefined states ("frozen"), second guess incorrectly about what I want it to do, needs to be recharged and have its batteries replaced, is vulnerable to hacking, needs continual updates, needs to be "managed" in various ways, and is generally not reliable enough to trust. Smart appliances make life miserable. Unless we can radically change the way that we program these things, to alleviate these ills, a world in which everything is a "smart" appliance is a frustrating world in which nothing works anymore.