Scientific material breakthrough... GRAPHENE!

Technology helps the world advance. As humans it's in our nature to investigate, innovate and solve problems. This curiosity means we make things, create things and develop new technologies.

You can look back thousands of years for basic examples of technology pushing civilization forward. Most people don't understand the rapid change technology has on their life... or the speed at which change occurs.

For example, the following are the five 'Great Ages' of human progress and their approximate duration:

• Stone Age - 3.4 million years
• Bronze Age - 2,500 years
• Iron Age - 500 years
• Industrial Revolution - 80 years
• Information Revolution - 20 years
You'll notice the length of each 'age' diminishes as technology improves.
The computer industry calls this trend 'Moore's Law'. It dictates that computer processing power doubles every 18 months.

200 times stronger than steel...
150,000 times thinner than a human hair...
more flexible than a sheet of paper…
You may have heard about Graphene. If you haven't, it's a newly discovered, very special refined form of graphite.

It's a one-atom-thick sheet of densely packed carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice. Take a look:


Put simply, it's a sheet of carbon atoms 150,000 times thinner than a human hair.

Under a powerful microscope, it looks like chicken wire.
But what's so special about it? Everything.

For starters, it's 200 times stronger than structural steel...

It's so strong you could suspend an elephant from a single strand of graphene... and the strand would not break.

It's extremely lightweight, too.

Soon, everything from bicycles and boats to airplanes and cars could be made out of graphene composites.

And when they are, their energy efficiency and durability could skyrocket.

But that's just the beginning of what this new 'smart material' can do.

Not only is it the strongest material researchers have ever tested - it's also one of the best conductors man has ever found.

IBM has already created a graphene-based processor capable of executing 100 billion cycles per second.

Researchers believe that in the future, a graphene credit card could store as much information as today's computers.

This one material alone could prove more revolutionary than and soon REPLACE - plastic, Kevlar and the silicon chip.

Kiss goodbye to shattered screens!

In fact, it's such a breakthrough that the first two scientists to successfully produce single-atom-thick crystals of graphene were awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics. And for good reason...

In just two years, over 200 companies from a wide array of industries have researched the magical potential of graphene.


• Scientists in the US and China are already using tiny graphene-based probes to target and identify tumors in live mice. They hope similar graphene-based particles could shuttle cancer drugs to tumors... or even kill tumor cells directly!
• Engineers at Northwest University, Seattle, found that specially crafted graphene electrodes could allow a lithium-ion battery - like those found in your smartphone or Toyota Prius - to charge 10 times faster and hold 10 times more power.
• And in 2011, chemists at Rice University, Houston, created graphene-based thin films unlocking the secret to incredibly flexible, super durable touch screens and solar cells that can wrap around just about anything.

The Smallest Revolution in History.
Down at the molecular level there's a lot of friction. Particles can stick together really easily. This means new and complicated structures can be formed.

Today scientists are experimenting with different conditions to see what sorts of new molecular structures they can create. The results are astonishing.

All these different molecular structures have different properties.
And soon they'll change the way we live.

From solar panels you can spray onto your roof... to computers and batteries so small they are invisible. From mobile phones that you can stretch, twist and even imbed into your clothing... they'll make stronger houses... tougher cars... and even make us healthier!

Medical researchers are already looking at using nano-particles to deliver drugs or hunt down cancerous tumors.

Just imagine 'nano medicines' patrolling your body, hunting down diseases and zapping problems as soon as they arise...

Samsung has already said its flexible displays should enter full-scale production later this year - and it expects to have a dozen more graphene-based products on the market within the next five.

IBM, Nokia and Apple are hot on their heels too.

Touch screens... processor chips... casings... and batteries in everything from PCs and HD TVs to tablets, mobile phones and hybrids could be all made with graphene.

It could change entire industries... economies... and our lives.
Imagine:

HD TVs as thin as wallpaper...

Smart phones so skinny and flexible you can roll them up and put them behind your ear... and so durable you can beat them with a hammer!

It's mind-blowing.

Imagine how our world - and your life - would change if the batteries that run your iPhone... your Kindle... and your laptop held 10 TIMES more power and charged 10 TIMES faster than they do now...
If you could eliminate breast cancer or prostate tumors with a simple injection... or by swallowing a graphene-charged pill.

If your house were strong enough to withstand a brush fire - and your windows processed enough solar energy to heat your home in winter and cool it in the summer...

If the car you drove were six times lighter and 20 times stronger... The effects would be staggering.

Fuel-efficiency would shoot through the roof.

People would live longer, healthier lives.

Cars and airplanes would be lighter, faster and safer than ever before.

And electronics of every type would be launched into an era of unprecedented growth and evolution.

This is just a taste of the cutting-edge innovations coming in the Molecular Age... innovations that will reshape the future in the months and years ahead... and it's starting now.

This technological change and innovation will transform the world.

• 'Nano batteries' will charge your mobile in seconds... and even power whole cities...
• 'Smartphones' will carry the computing power of IBM's Watson Supercomputer...
• A new era of computing mobility - none of the solid rectangular things we carry now but flexible, wearable devices...
• Handheld 'breathalyzers' will diagnose disease in seconds...
• Bionic limbs with human fluidity and dexterity, but the strength of Superman!
• Spacecraft with the capacity to take us beyond our solar system into places and worlds never explored...

You're looking at a simultaneous eruption of new-age technologies that will alter our lives on a scale not seen for hundreds of years.

(I thought about putting this under the 'Technical' heading as it may eventually effect a lot of systems on our vessels, but its just too broad of a subject)

....another reference

Graphene

Actually that was not my summary, but rather one I received in an email to me from a friend. Regrettably he did not include the original source of that writing.

Smart Glass

I thought at one time that this new 'smart glass' technology might benefit from this carbon membrane,....and maybe it will in the future?

But meantime here is another reference to Smart Glass
Designfax – Technology for OEM Design Engineers

Another Youtube presentation that a friend sent to me recently....

https://www.youtube.com/embed/WFacA6OwCjA

Polymer-based graphene substitute is easy to mass-produce

Polymer-based graphene substitute is easy to mass-produce

Extract Hydrogen Directly from Air ?


In research out of the University of Manchester in the UK led by Nobel Laureate Andre Geim, it has been shown that the one-atom-thick materials graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), once thought to be impermeable, allow protons to pass through them. The result, the Manchester researchers believe, will be more efficient fuel cells and the simplification of the heretofore difficult process of separating hydrogen gas for use as fuel in fuel cells.

This latest development alters the understanding of one of the key properties of graphene: that it is impermeable to all gases and liquids. Even an atom as small as hydrogen would need billions of years for it to pass through the dense electronic cloud of graphene. In fact, it is this impermeability that has made it attractive for use in gas separation membranes.

But as Geim and his colleagues discovered, in research that was published in the journal Nature, monolayers of graphene and boron nitride are highly permeable to thermal protons under ambient conditions. So hydrogen atoms stripped of their electrons could pass right through the one-atom-thick materials.

The surprising discovery that protons could breach these materials means that that they could be used in proton-conducting membranes (also known as proton exchange membranes), which are central to the functioning of fuel cells. Fuel cells operate through chemical reactions involving hydrogen fuel and oxygen, with the result being electrical energy. The membranes used in the fuel cells are impermeable to oxygen and hydrogen but allow for the passage of protons.

It is these proton exchange membrane fuel cells that are thought to be the most viable fuel cell design for replacing the internal combustion engine in vehicles. However, the polymer-based membranes that have been used to date suffer from fuel crossover that limits their efficiency and durability.

The implication of this latest research is that graphene and hBN could be used to create a thinner membrane that would be more efficient while reducing fuel crossover and cell poisoning. The end result is that it could give the fuel cell the technological push that it has needed to make hydrogen a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

Another, even more remarkable prospect highlighted by this discovery is that these one-atom-thick materials could be used to extract hydrogen from a humid atmosphere. This could be a huge bend in the road that points us towards the so-called hydrogen economy.

One of the inconvenient truths about fuel cells for powering automobiles is that it is extremely costly and energy intensive to isolate hydrogen gas. The main push in nanomaterials for hydrogen gas separation has been artificial photosynthesis in which sunlight rather than electricity is used to split the hydrogen from a water molecule. In fact, another two-dimensional material, molybdenum sulfide (MoS2), has been used as a somewhat effective catalyst for producing hydrogen gas in a solar water-splitting process.

But what Geim and his colleagues are suggesting with this latest research stands this paradigm on its head. It is conceivable, based on this research, that hydrogen production could be combined with the fuel cell itself to make what would amount to a mobile electric generator fueled simply by hydrogen present in air.
“When you know how it should work, it is a very simple setup,” said Marcelo Lozada-Hidalgo, a PhD student and corresponding author of this paper, in a press release. “You put a hydrogen-containing gas on one side, apply a small electric current, and collect pure hydrogen on the other side. This hydrogen can then be burned in a fuel cell.”

Lozada-Hidalgo added: “We worked with small membranes, and the achieved flow of hydrogen is of course tiny so far. But this is the initial stage of discovery, and the paper is to make experts aware of the existing prospects. To build up and test hydrogen harvesters will require much further effort."

While some have been frustrated that Geim has focused his attention on fundamental research rather than becoming more active in the commercialization of graphene, he may have just cracked open graphene’s greatest application possibility to date.

Interesting observation ArcanisX,...that link to "Graphene's Discoverer Weighs In on Its Commercialization"