We are on the brink of a revolution that will completely change the way we use every-day products like cars, clothes, light bulbs, and even water.
Leading the way is a fascinating material called graphene.
Graphene is a thin sheet of carbon atoms — the same element in diamonds and coal — and was the first two-dimensional substance ever created, meaning it's one-atom thick, or about one million times thinner than a human hair.
Despite its miniscule size, graphene has a grand portfolio of wondrous properties. For instance, it's 1,000 times stronger than steel, yet 1,000 times lighter than paper. And it's significantly more electrically conductive than silicon, the substance we use in computer circuits.
Since graphene was first discovered in 2004, hundreds of researchers around the world have begun studying its qualities, which have the potential to revolutionize the world.
Faster, cheaper computers
When graphene's electrical conductivity was first discovered, there were hopeful whispers that graphene could replace silicon chips in today's computers — a change that could usher in a new era of cheaper, faster, super-efficient electronics.
But more than 10 years later, we're still using silicon-based chips because scientists have yet to find a way to control the electrical current across a graphene chip — a crucial feature in running computers' integrated circuits.
In January of last year, researchers at IBM announced a major breakthrough in this field: They designed and built an integrated circuit made of graphene (pictured above). For the first time, the machine performed comparable to silicon technology, IBM reported in a press release. Shortly after this first announcement, IBM announced that they were pledging another $3 billion to continue researching ways to make faster, cheaper computer chips with graphene and other materials.
Longer-lasting light bulbs
In March of this year, scientists at the University of Manchester and a company called Graphene Lighting announced that they had designed a graphene light bulb. The scientists took a regular light-emitting diode, or LED, and painted a layer of graphene over it.
Because graphene is great at conducting electricity, the scientists report that the bulb could be 10% more efficient and last longer than LEDs currently on the market. These graphene bulbs should be available for purchase in the next few months.
Better oil spill mops
This April, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reported that they had developed a revolutionary way to manufacture graphene through 3D printing. What you see on your right is a 3D-printed graphene aero-gel sitting atop a dime for scale.
Aero-gels are made of mostly air, which makes them highly absorbent. Therefore they could be used as a quick new way of cleaning up oil spills. In 2013, Chinese material scientists said that they had produced a graphene aero-gel that could absorb up to 900 times its own weight in oil. Not only that, the same aero-gel could be used, squeezed dry, and reused numerous times.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider