What are the applications of graphene?

Graphene is an atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern. Graphene is considered to be the thinnest, strongest and most conductive material in the world - both electrically and thermally. All of these properties are exciting to researchers and businesses around the world—as graphene has the potential to revolutionize entire industries—in areas such as electricity, conductivity, energy production, batteries, sensors, and more.

Mechanical strength

Graphene is the strongest material in the world and can be used to enhance the strength of other materials. Dozens of researchers have shown that adding even tiny amounts of graphene to plastics, metals or other materials can make those materials stronger or lighter (because you can use less material to achieve the same strength).

Such graphene-enhanced composites can be used in aerospace, building materials, mobile devices, and many other applications.

Energy reserve

Since graphene is the thinnest material in the world, it also has an extremely high surface area to volume ratio. This makes graphene a very promising material for batteries and supercapacitors. Graphene could enable batteries and supercapacitors (and even fuel cells) to store more energy and charge faster.

Thermal application

Graphene is the most thermally conductive ever discovered. Because graphene is both strong and lightweight, this means it is an excellent material for thermal solutions, such as heat sinks or thermal films. This could be useful in both microelectronics, such as making LED lighting more efficient and durable, as well as larger applications, such as thermal foils for mobile devices. For example, Huawei's latest smartphone uses a graphene-based heat-sensitive film.

Coatings, sensors, electronic products, etc.

Graphene holds many promises in other applications: anti-corrosion coatings and coatings, efficient and precise sensors, faster and more efficient electronics, flexible displays, efficient solar panels, faster DNA sequencing, drug delivery, and more Wait.

Graphene is such a great and fundamental building block that it seems like any industry could benefit from this new material. Time will tell where graphene does make an impact -- or if other new materials are more suitable.