Graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of the stuff in pencils, is considered a better conductor than copper and is extremely promising for electronic devices however there is one catch: Electrons that pass through it cannot be stopped.
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Although graphene’s unsurpassed strength as a material was made clear back in the 20th century, the construction industry still relies on traditional techniques and products for the most part.
Factories stand ready to launch wholesale production of graphene concrete and other building materials, but the market remains largely uninformed of their potential. If demand has yet to take off, perhaps it is because graphene still poses as many questions as answers. Researchers at NanoGraphene, Inc. finding themselves in the eye of Hurricane Irma, considered the question of how such enormous destruction could have been avoided.
Recent advances in single-molecule thermoelectricity has isolated and identified different families of high-performance molecules. However, to realize the commercial potential of these molecules and convert them into real-world thin-film energy-harvesting devices, fundamental issues surrounding parallel-aligned junctions within these devices need to be addressed.
Sebastian Leaper on how he’s making clean drinking water more accessible using graphene.
Demand for higher bandwidth has led to research on unexplored frequency spectrums, such as the terahertz-band for 5G. The first flexible graphene-based terahertz detector will enable new applications in sensing and Internet of Things. The unique electronic properties of graphene, combined with its flexible nature and ease of deposition makes it a promising material to integrate electronics into plastics and fabrics, which will be the building blocks of a future truly interconnected world.
Researchers at Manchester University’s National Graphene Institute (NGI) have assembled 2D materials with sub-nanometre slits that hold potential for water desalination. The materials are made from graphene, hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) and molybdenum disulphide (MoS2). According to the researchers, they were able to manufacture slits in these materials just several angstroms (0.1nm) in diameter. At this scale, it was possible to study how individual ions behaved while passing through the slits. The work, which is published in the journal Science, also sheds light on how similar scale biological filters function in nature.
Researchers in the UK (the University of Manchester) and Italy (the University of Pisa) have developed an inkjet-printed graphene strain gauge sensor on paper. The device is said to have a gauge factor of up to 125 even when very small strains are applied, and its overall sensitivity and performance can be tuned by different printing parameters, such as drop-spacing and number of printing passes. It might be used in applications like robot skin and health monitoring applications, and in smart packaging.
Researchers at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) are developing a water treatment system based on a mix of graphene oxide and a byproduct made from shrimp shells.
The ability to charge cellphones in seconds is one step closer after researchers at the University of Waterloo used nanotechnology to significantly improve energy-storage devices known as supercapacitors.
Lithium-ion batteries are used to power many things from mobile phones, laptops, tablets to electric cars. But they have some drawbacks, including limited energy storage capacity, low durability and long charging time.