It’s one atom thick, lighter than paper, 300 times stronger than steel, harder than a diamond, 1000 times more conductive than silicon & can stretch more than 20% of its original length. Something that will doubtless find a market making bullet proof evening gowns & tuxes for inner city dwellers.
You may never have heard of graphene, most people haven’t. You will soon though as this high-tech medium will shape virtually every part of our daily lives by the end of this decade. As you read this, researchers and scientists are working furiously for ways to transform this discovery into the Next Big Thing.
funny I just saw an ad /stock promotion for a mine for this in the paper this morning.
my first thoughts were if we can make diamonds we can make this stuff
Just say NO to carbon./ green wienie luddite
I wants some of that stuff – but the potential for some heavy duty ‘paper cuts’ isn’t something i doubts they’ve much looked into….
I’ve been involved in the graphene/graphite space for a couple of years. It is very much the real deal but it is a minefield for investors.
There are over 10,000 graphene based patents out there. Big companies like Samsung are all over the material. The issue is commercialization. Right now there are lots of things which work fantastically in the lab – YouTube is your friend on this. But making graphene into a real product is not so simple.
I work with one company, Lomiko Metals, which has developed very solid connections with a leading graphene lab. One of the things which Lomiko is pursuing is graphene based 3D printing. It is an interesting idea – you add graphene to the polymer that is used to do 3D printing and you can then print things which are conductive to electricity. If you are interested you can read my Financial Post article about Lomiko http://business.financialpost.com/2014/01/07/lomikos-big-crystal-future/
Like any other junior stock this one is not for the timid. The CEO, Paul Gill is all over Twitter and you can follow progress easily.
carbon based super duper stuff, and now they gots a name fer it.
I’m still waiting to hear more about that quantum computer a company in BC “invented” in 2007.It was also going to revolutionize the world…..still waitin:-)))))
If graphene becomes the next big thing, guess what the best source of carbon is? Petrochemicals, so we’d better pump more oil or dig more coal.
“Satellites the size of skyscrapers, that weigh less than your barbecue grill” – I think the author doesn’t realize that air resistance is also critical when launching satellites. Punching a hole in the atmosphere is hard as is dealing with winds, so I think satellites will continue to be as small as possible.
Well satellites will be small as possible, until we get an orbital ring system with elevators in place. Then it’ll be trivial in the size and weight of the payload.
Hah. I’m still waiting on the gallium arsenide chips that were going to let us break the 3 GHz barrier on VLSI computer chips.
Exxon bought my patent for 100km/liter engine in 1976 , still looking for it on the road or in Dr. Megele Fruitflys RV
ILLEGAL in Canada.
Anything that protects innocent people from bad people is illegal or requires background checks and a huge registry process in Canada.
Alison Redfraud just criminalized ownership of unregistered bullet proof vests for Alberta taxpayers in 2013.
My company is making 10 GHZ GaAs chips as we speak.
Granted, they are for communications and defense…
GaAs technology is not compatible with the current VLSI Si computer technology. It is just too damn expensive to build microprocessors on this strata.
Graphene the MATERIAL is real and will likely be “the next big thing.”
However, graphene THE INVESTMENT is currently a scam. Companies (all HUGE) that truly ARE involved in graphene haven’t yet made a penny of from it, and they are so huge that buying their stock is really buying something entirely DIFFERENT than graphene. In short, it sounds too good to be true as an investment, because it is … give it some time, and as a MATERIAL, as a set of PRODUCTS, it will eventually pan out, but many hundreds of millions of dollars will be lost to graphene as an INVESTMENT by we the little people.
but many hundreds of millions of dollars will be lost.
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Sounds like a great investment for present obumbles and his clowns to invest American tax dollars.
Actually, graphene is a very viable product, the issue is the manufacturing costs of creating it.
Think of a product that is as strong as steel and a fraction of its weight. It is very real, just very expensive to create.
As eluded to in the second comment, the carbon death cultists will find something wrong with it and it will wind up only being used in David Suzuki’s numerous toilets, especially if it actually extends or saves human lives. That goes counter to the grand plan to depopulate the earth.
That article was long on hype, and almost devoid of verifiable facts.
Your suit is made of graphene? Isn’t that 1000 times more conductive than silicon? Excuse me while I pull out my cattle prod (that I got for $30.00 at UFA). Give me your wallet, the keys to your Lamborghini and your girlfriend. Thank you.
*sigh*
Smells like Pump & Dump to me.
+1 for Skeptical One … I just came on here to write the exact same thing. That article is the prototypical “If it sounds too good to be true…”
What surprises me is that it was invented by Russians and the rest of the world is now looking at the potential. You would think that the Russian military would have first dibs and keep it hush hush as they explored the benefits in a “area 51” type setting.
Graphene, carbon nanotubes and buckyballs have been the Next Big Thing since the 1990’s.
I am still waiting for my nanotube thread that can hold up a suspension bridge and my graphene cloth that stops bullets. Also still waiting on my lubricating coating made of buckyballs that ends oil changes forever.
While we’re at it, where’s my room temperature superconducting battery, my fusion reactor and my freakin’ flying car?
Fusion will be online in 20 years :p Actually if I remember it is pretty likely that there will be one online in the next 10 years making more power than it takes.
The other problem is powering it. You could have a graphene newspaper light folds into nothing stick it in your poket ….however the lithium battery’s that are needed to power it are still to big and cumbersome ….like everything else.