Graphene
is believed to have great potential in manufacturing applications including
in electronics, defence and sustainable energy.
An
atom-thick sheet making up graphite, the two-dimensional material was isolated
only in 2003 by two researchers from the University of Manchester.
“It is the thinnest material known and yet is also one of the strongest,”
explains the university’s website, and is 200 times stronger than steel, harder
than diamond, yet still flexible.
Fairfax
reports that the material’s excellent conductivity of heat and electricity and
other properties are being explored by Australian researchers.
“Our funding pool in
Australia is much more limited,” Professor Dan Li
from Monash University, who leads a team of ten, told Fairfax when describing their research. “But that
doesn’t mean we can’t do something unique.
“I wasn’t that optimistic about graphene at
first,” he said. “A lot of promising materials never make it to
market.”
The successful use of grapheme
could lead to the production of high-performance items including ultra-thin computer and TV screens, photovoltaics,
and compact, ultra-efficient supercapacitors, as Li’s team has done.
Image: extremetech.com