by Twenty years ago, scientists announced that they had created a new miracle substance that was going to change our lives. They called it graphene.
Composed of a single row of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal pattern, it is one of the strongest materials ever made and, for good measure, is a better conductor of electricity and heat than copper.
The prospects for reviving technology seemed endless and a new generation of ultra-fast processors and computers was predicted. Reports said it could allow batteries to charge five times faster, and make concrete 35% stronger.
It was even put forward as the solution to potholes; just mix it with traditional surface material and the curse of modern driving would be eliminated, it was said.
The scientists from the University of Manchester who discovered it, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, were awarded the Nobel prize in physics in 2010 and the National Graphene Institute was established at the university.
But the hype over this miracle material has been greatly exaggerated. Graphene has yet to spark an electronics revolution; potholes are still with us.
So what happened to the graphene revolution? Why didn’t it change our world? Sir Colin Humphreys, professor of materials science at Queen Mary University of London, has a simple answer: “Graphene is still a very promising material. The problem is increasing production. That’s why it hasn’t had the impact it predicted.”
Graphene was first made in an unusual way, Humphreys explained. Geim and Novoselov created it by putting sticky tape on lumps of graphite and peeling back the layers until they got one that was the thickness of an atom.
“But it would only be a tiny flake, a few millimeters across,” he said. “You can’t make electronic devices with fragments like that. For functional devices, you must have a material wafer of at least 6in. So IBM, Samsung, and Intel spent billions between them trying to ramp up graphene production to produce it in useful forms and quantities—with little success.”
As a result, the graphene revolution was put on hold, although there are recent encouraging signs that the technology may soon regain much of its original promise.
Humphreys believes that the market could soon be re-energized due to advances in graphene-based device manufacturing. An important development in this drive has been made by Humphreys and his colleagues, who realized that the technology used to make gallium nitride electronic components could be used to make graphene on a large scale.
“We used some of the first graphene we made this way to make a sensor that could detect magnetic fields,” said Humphreys, who has since founded a spin-off company, Paragraph, with his team.
Based in the village of Somersham in Cambridgeshire, it is now one of the first companies in the world to mass produce graphene-based devices. Two reactors – shaped like pizza ovens – are now producing enough graphene to make 150,000 devices a day.
Paragraph is using these in two ways: first, to make sensors that measure magnetic fields. These can be used to detect malfunctioning batteries in e-bikes and e-scooters, thus preventing fires.
The second type of sensor can distinguish between bacterial and viral infections, indicating whether antibiotics would be an appropriate treatment. “We also believe that we could use our biosensors to detect whether someone has sepsis or not, in a matter of minutes,” Humphreys said.
It is also important that graphene devices are likely to consume less energy than current devices, he said.
“The silicon age is coming to an end. We have reached a limit to the number of transistors we can put on a single chip and the energy they use is doubling every three years.
“And that means that if nothing happens, and if we continue as we are doing, silicon devices will consume all of the world’s electricity generation – a major threat to our net-zero aspirations.
“Graphene technology may have come later than we first expected but it could circumvent these problems and make a real difference to modern life.”
Hyped science that failed to make the grade
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Nuclear power “Our children will enjoy electric energy in their homes that is too cheap to meter” – Lewis Strauss, who was chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission in 1954.
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The Mac Comer C5 “This is the future of transportation” – promotional material for the Sinclair C5 electric scooter/car in 1985. First year sales were predicted to be 100,000 but only 5,000 were sold. The project was abandoned.
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Medical progress “It is time to close the book on infectious diseases, and declare the war on pestilence won” – attributed to Dr William H Stewart, US Surgeon General 1965-1969.
