What happened to graphene?

 What has become of graphene?

That is a question that probably none of you are thinking of. In all likelihood, none of you even know what graphene is! If that is the case, allow me to introduce you to a special field of science, studying 2D materials

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Of course, your mind will be riddled with questions right about now, so allow me to give some answers to the questions I deem you are most likely to have.

What is graphene? To answer that question, we must travel back in time, to the point this story began.

Graphene has a long history, being only theoretically explored by P. R. Wallace in 1947, and being truly "discovered" by a few people, including Hanns-Peter Boehm in 1962 and finally being produced in its pure, single-layer form in 2004, by Andre Geim, Konstantin Novoselov and their co-workers. What do I mean by single layer form? Well, that brings me back to my previous point about 2D materials and Graphene being one of them.

What graphene is on the molecular level is a single, or up to 7 molecular sheets of the material known as graphite, which is nowadays used for making pencils. However, because of graphene's thickness, it has a lot of peculiar qualities, which are not observed in normal graphite. It is 200 times more resistant than steel and 5 times lighter than aluminum, extremely flexible and extremely conductive. 

Allegedly, the discovery of single-layer graphene was caused by the duo previously mentioned using scotch tape in order to slowly remove layers of graphite, untill only one remained. This discovery lead to them being nominated with the 2010 Nobel prize in Physics. And thus started the ever expanding field of research that is 2D materials. Another example of a 2D material is Phosphorene, a single layer of black phosphorus.

Nowadays Graphene is used in solar panels, lights, anti-corossion coatings, paint, medicine, clothing.

Lastly, before closing off this article, I must mention the existance of so called 1D and 0D materails.

While 2D materials are classified as nanosheets, 1D materials are nanotubes, which mainly expand in a single dimension, and have a tube-like shape. 0D materials are classified as nanoparticles and are extremely small in all directions.

For more information regarding graphene you can watch this documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEd1Z-eIXsQ

Sources

https://www.graphene-info.com/graphene-history-controversy-and-nobel-prize

https://www.ossila.com/en-eu/pages/introduction-2d-materials