If you aren’t already familiar with graphene, you’ll be hearing plenty about it over the next few years. It’s not often that the scientific community makes the kind of discovery that could change everything. But with graphene, that’s exactly what we’re looking at. A material that’s been right there in front of us all along, but it’s just beginning to demonstrate its true potential as a global game-changer.
The Discovery Of Graphene
Interestingly, the scientific community has been fully aware of its existence for quite some time. It’s just that nobody had yet come up with a workable method for extracting it from graphite. This all changed in 2004, when two researchers at The University of Manchester, Prof Andre Geim and Prof Kostya Novoselov, finally made it happen.
And to say their accomplishment has huge significance for the world as a whole would be a marked understatement.
Flexible, Light & Conductive
Graphene is, quite simply, strong and thin on a level that’s mind-blowing. 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair, the world’s first official ‘two-dimensional’ material is the stuff of pure sci-fi fantasy.
What’s more, graphene is incredibly conductive, can be layered as required by the application and can also be combined with other materials and liquids. Even if science isn’t really your thing, it isn’t difficult to understand the incredible significance of this remarkable material.