Possible Uses for Graphene

Potential graphene applications include lightweight, thin, flexible, yet durable display screens, electric/photonics circuits, solar cells, and various medical, chemical and industrial processes enhanced or enabled by the use of new graphene materials.

In 2008, graphene produced by exfoliation was one of the most expensive materials on Earth, with a sample the area of a cross section of a human hair costing more than $1,000 as of April 2008 (about $100,000,000/cm²). Since then, exfoliation procedures have been scaled up, and now companies sell graphene in large quantities. The price of epitaxial graphene on Silicon carbide is dominated by the substrate price, which was approximately $100/cm² as of 2009. Hong and his team in South Korea pioneered the synthesis of large-scale graphene films using chemical vapour deposition (CVD) on thin nickel layers, which triggered research on practical applications, with wafer sizes up to 30 inches (760 mm) reported.

In 2013, the European Union made a €1 billion grant to be used for research into potential graphene applications. In 2013 the Graphene Flagship consortium formed, including Chalmers University of Technology and seven other European universities and research centers, along with Nokia.

Potential Applications Under Study

·         Medicine, including tissue engineering, contrast agents and bioimaging, polymerase chain reaction, devices, drug delivery, biomicrorobotics, testing, and toxicity

·         Electronics, including transistors, transparent conducting electrodes, frequency multipliers, optoelectronics, Hall effect sensors, quantum dots, organic electronics, spintronics, and conductive ink

·         Light processing, including optical modular, ultraviolet lens, infrared light detection, and photodetector

• Energy, including generation and storage

 

• Sensors, including pressure sensors, NEMS, molecular adsorbtion, piezoelectric effect, body motion and magnetic

 

• Environmental, including contaminant removal and water filtration

 

• Other, such as plasmonics and metamaterials, lubricant, radio wave absorption, redox, nanoantennas, sound transducers, waterproof coating, coolant additive, reference material, thermal management, structural material, catalyst, and aviation

Detailed discussion at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_applications_of_graphene