Today I somehow stumbled upon a LinkedIn post about a Kickstarter kitchen cooktop that is marketed around its use of graphene. At first, I was intrigued and then when I went to the page, I thought, "Really, this is where we are?" To give some context, there are few substances that have captured technologists' attention quite like graphene has. Since its discovery in 2004, the material has been hailed as nothing short of revolutionary. If you are like me and have read countless research and popular articles and graphene, I'm sure you've heard the claims such as just "one atom thick but 200 times stronger than steel" or "extremely conductive, and simultaneously see-through and flexible". Any product engineer would be giddy at the prospect of having access to graphene to address their design criteria.
Yet, almost two decades later, graphene doesn't seem to have turned our world upside down like some predicted. I mean, where is my graphene space elevator [1,2] that was promised? This prompts the question: why hasn't graphene infiltrated every product we use? I'm going to try answer this in the form of setting the scenes of a story.
Act I: The Promise
When graphene first burst onto the scene via the discovery by Geim and Konstantin [3]*, the hype by other scientists and engineers was real. Technologists started spouting about smartphones that could be rolled up like a newspaper, transformative airplane designs, and everyday bulletproof vests as thin as a T-shirt [1]. So in 2023 where are these? Well, there have definitely been advances in all three mentioned above, just not due to graphene. For example, we have flip smartphones, but they use organic LED technology, not graphene.
So why no graphene? Basically, transitioning graphene from research lab-based synthesis to widespread commercial use is very challenging. For the first few years, most of the research was confined to academia, focusing on fundamental physics. Even now, most graphene R&D occurs in academia or national labs [4].
Act II: The Challenges
What followed shortly after the discovery of graphene was a boom in graphene-related companies involved in bringing to market high-quality and scalable production. The challenges that emerged came on quick. One key challenge was the lack of universally agreed standards for graphene [1-2,4-5]. This lead to too many variations and inconsistent quality, which makes it too risky for companies to start substituting traditional materials with graphene. It's kind of like trying to make a recipe when the ingredients keep changing or have gone bad! Another issue is the available synthesis modalities that scale well.
Act III: The Real-World Applications
So, is it game over? Not really. While the applications that the hype of graphene focused on are still on discussed [2], there are some real-world applications, albeit more modest ones. Some of the first applications were in composites, where small amounts of graphene were incorporated into other materials to improve their properties [1,2,5]. Sports equipment was a big benefactor and the creation of better protective paints and coatings, stronger building materials, and conductive inks for 3D and inkjet printing also occurred [1]. An example of early graphene use was in 2013, when the tennis company Head introduced a racquet with a graphene-enhanced polymer in the shaft. This resulted in a racquet that was 20% lighter overall but maintained the same swing weight.
Act IV: What's Next?
The future of graphene is probably still very bright, as the number of papers published on it continues to skyrocket (see graph below). It seems the story of graphene isn't about a revolutionary, world-changing wonder material (at least, not yet), but rather a steady progression of modest, real-world applications that leverage the unique properties of graphene.
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| Source: Source: https://app.dimensions.ai. Exported 17, May 2023. Criteria: 'graphene' in full data. |
So, what about the Kickstarter campaign for a graphene-based kitchen cooktop. I mean kudos to them for actually building a product that emphasizes graphene, but this isn't really what many of us had been envisioning as "life" changing.
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