New Research Shows Graphene Coating Can Protect Against Corrosion

Researchers at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) have recently demonstrated that a graphene coating can protect glass from corrosion.

According to the researchers, their published study, found in the American Chemical Society’s, can solve problems related to glass corrosion in several industries.

Glass has a high degree of both corrosion and chemical resistance. For this end, it is the primary packaging material to preserve drugs and chemicals, the researchers note. 

However, when shown over time at high humidity and pH, some glass types can corrode. Corroded glass loses its transparency, and its force is also reduced. As a result, the corrosion of silicate glass, the most common and oldest form of glass, by water is a serious problem, the researchers say—especially for the pharmaceutical, environmental, and optical industries, and particularly those in hot and humid climates.

Although there are varying types of glass, the researchers explain that ordinary glazing and containers are usually made of silicon dioxide (SiO2) and sodium oxide (Na2O), along with secondary additives. Glass corrosion begins with the adsorption of water on the glass surface. Hydrogen ions from water then distribute into the glass and exchange with the sodium ions present on the glass surface. The pH of the water near the glass surface increases, allowing the silicate structure to dissolve.

Scientists have examined how to coat glass better to protect it from damage. According to the researchers, an ideal protective coating should be thin, transparent, and provide a good diffusion barrier to chemical attack. Graphene possesses chemical inertness, thinness, and high transparency, making it very promising as a coating material.

Moreover, owing to its excellent chemical barrier properties, a graphene coating can block helium atoms from infiltrating through it. The use of graphene coating is also being examined as a protective layer for other materials requiring resistance to corrosion, oxidation, friction, bacterial infection, electromagnetic radiation, and more.

IBS scientists grew the graphene on copper and transferred either one or two atom-thick layers of graphene to both sides of rectangular pieces of glass. The effectiveness of the graphene coating was evaluated by water immersion testing and observing the differences between uncoated and coated glass.

After 120 days of immersion in water at 60 °C, the uncoated glass samples had significantly increased surface roughness and defects while reducing fracture strength. In contrast, both the single and double-layer graphene-coated glasses had virtually no change in fracture strength and surface roughness.

“The purpose of the study was to determine whether graphene grown by chemical vapor displacement on copper foils, a now established method, could be transferred onto glass, and preserve the glass from corrosion,” says Prof. Rodney S. Ruoff, director of the CMCM and a professor at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST).

“Our study shows that even one-atom-thick layer of graphene does the trick,” he adds. “In the future, when it is possible to create larger and yet higher-quality graphene sheets and to optimize the shift on glass, it seems reasonably likely that graphene coating on the glass will be used on an industrial scale.”

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New Graphene Discovery May Unlock Superconductivity secrets

[ Music, ], hello, everyone subject: zero graphene has done it again. Folks in a paper published back in March, 2019 in scientists announced yet another curious characteristics of graphene, but before we dive into this, let's recap some of the super conductivity findings of graphene. All of this started back in 2005 when they first noticed that Griffin had some weird properties for those of us who have been waiting for graphene. For that long, I would like to point out that that famous and nonnamous quote graphene can do everything but leave the lab is not true anymore. There are actually products already available out there, and you should look for my video, the current state of graphene, where I talk about of some of the products. There are already available going back to superconductivity. Since 2005, scientists have known about this superconductivity property of graphene when mixed with other known elements such as calcium, copper and lithium, just to name a few, but at that time they used what they called intercalated bilayer of graphene, which would look something like this. This is a calcium, graphene sandwich and, basically, what it does is. It allows the electrons to move more freely due to the properties of calcium and graphene turn into a superconductor. But then again, they still rely on the fact that they had to turn the temperature way down for the effect to appear or about two to four kelvins, to be more precise for those of you that might not know the best online source of knowledge. Wikipedia generally defines superconductors as it is a phenomenon of exactly zero. Electrical resistance and expulsion of magnetic reflects fields occurring in a certain materials called superconductors when cooled below a characteristical critical temperature. Essentially, for you to reach that state, you have to use certain materials at nearly zero Kelvin, which makes it impossible in everyday use and for the longest time scientists have been looking for other ways to achieve this phenomenon with many compounds, including, but not limited to notice. That the temperatures used are all near zero Kelvin, which can only be achieved in a lab for very specific applications. But the key aspect of superconductors is that the transport electrons at zero electrical resistance, which would be optimal for many things like MRI particle acceleration electrical transmissions. Among many other technologies that would appear overnight in a sort of electrical revolution 2.0, the problem is every frame would have to be cooled down to nearly zero Kelvin, which makes it impractical for any day-to-day application and has remained the biggest challenge for more than three decades And then there is the fact that superconductors are generally placed into two categories: conventional and unconventional, where conventional is something that can be explained by mainstream theory, whereas unconventional can't that's simple and graphene, my dear viewers fall into the second one. Nevertheless, in 2018, scientists may have found the answer, and all they needed to do was put two graphene sheets on top of each other and rotate one of them at exactly one point, one degrees - and I mean exactly here because if you move a little more just Like point one degree and the opposite effect is seen, but how did I even get to this? Well, the MIT group led by Pablo Jerry Leo O'Hara, we're looking into the magic angle effect, which is a theory to which, by changing the angle of a material that is aligned against each other, may have interesting outcomes to be more clear. This wasn't something out of the blue or some lucky research. Finding this effect has been theorized for many years, where it predicted that any 2d materials at a specific angle twist would have its property change, but nobody knew for certain what would happen. So this is not exclusive to graphene, as in theory, you could do this to any element. It so happens that graphene is made out of carbon which, as we will see later made scientists not expect anything like this, and this is why scientists are baffled with this new discovery. Simply because having a superconductor made out of carbon makes all kinds of sense and you may open the doors for many more interesting things to come. So most of the theories and understandings gathered over the years cannot be used to explain this one, but what they know is that graphene is able to reach the same states as conventional superconductors with just 110 thousand of the electron density. This is important because before this, it was thought that the electron density was a key factor at play in superconductivity. Hence why a lot of superconductors were made using copper and other materials. The hypothesis is that electrons reach a vibrational state that pairs them up with each other stabilizing a path and allowing them to move without resistance, but with graphene. This is not the case since the electron density is many times lower, which suggests that whatever is happening with graphene is many more times stronger than conventional superconductors. But then again, scientists aren't really agreeing with how electrons interact with unconventional superconductors, as they still don't know. What make electrons pair up in the first place, scientists now have the opportunity to create devices to which will be easier to study than Cup rates, remembering that Cup rates often have to be subjected to precise mixing of elements and treated at extreme magnetic fields. On the other hand, graphene is cheaper easier to make well it's getting easier and require way less preparation where all they have to do is change the sheet angle and play with electrical fields in order to yield the same results, easy peasy, lemon squeezy. These graphene experiments started with the exploration of the magic angle effect where all they were looking for is, if anything odd would happen and what they found was a bit mesmerizing. What they found out quickly was that, at the angle of 1.1 degrees, a slight offset that is hard to get it created, what they called a precise mori configuration, which is what I talked about earlier when I mentioned the magic theory angle. Amoy pattern is nothing but a pattern that interferes with each other like two sheets of parallel lines that are rotated on top of each other with graphene due to its hexagonal pattern. This creates interesting visuals, while in the molecular level it may result in weird behavior the configuration at that specific angle created a strong interaction in between electrons and the graphene sheet. Any other angle, and nothing happens initially. They discovered that, when twisted at that angle, the graphene sheets would show behavior of what is described as a Mott insulator. Mod insulators are nothing but materials. That, in theory, should conduct electricity, but in fact, and I'm not doing so, creating an insulation effect, particularly at low temperatures. In theory, an insulator is any mature that which its last band gap is filled with electrons, therefore, making it hard for electrons to move freely with mod insulators. That is what was expected to happen, but because of a strong electrostatic interactions between electrons exist, the material ceases. Any electricity flow, so it all comes down to this. The idea here is that they created materials that they expected to behave in a certain way, but when tested, they found the opposite, which goes against the conventional band theory, in this case with graphene. It turned out that at that angle, whenever they measured the conductivity and the density of particles, it suggested that at this angle, graphene was behaving like a ma insulator to see if the effects would be the same at any voltage, they increased the electrical field to pump Up just a few extra charges into the sheets, and that is when graphene became a superconductor. The important thing here is that every experiment afterwards confirmed that this was in fact happening not only at MIT, but also in Harvard and other universities. Now, although this is pretty cool, they still have one problem and it all comes down to keeping the two graphene layers at that angle. Just to give you an idea, graphite layers are usually aligned at the same direction so to twist the layers is still a challenge, and then there is the fact that any small perturbation in the model either by electricity or heat and the two layers will go back To normal, so you can expect the test in this effect has been quite difficult, but all of this raises the question: if this is superconductivity at all happening in this material up till now, scientists aren't sure if this is the case, but so far experiments are positive And can only confirm that there are unusual things going on with manipulating the graphene sheet angle. Nevertheless, we can expect more cool things to come about graphene, as it's proving itself to be, indeed, a wonder material, alright, folks, that's it we're done here. [, Music, ],

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Taking GRAPHENE out of the Lab - The Current State

We'Ve all been following the evolution of graphene for years now or ever since it came into light with the 2010 Nobel Prize, but graphene has been around for longer than that, or at least 63 years in the making nine years after graphene took over the world by Storm many of us are still wondering about. Where are all the things that we were promised made with graphene [ Music, ], [, Music ]. It all started with a block of graphite back in 2004, when two scientists and regain and Konstantin Novoselov at the University of Manchester managed to produce something that was in the works for the past 14 years. Since 1990, scientists were trying to come up with different methods to isolate graphene from graphite, but for all that time, all they managed to get was nothing thinner than 50 to 100 layers. However, this is only part of the story, as the single layered sheet was first theorized back in 1947 by Pierre Wallace, as an attempt to understand the electronic properties of 3d graphite 63 years later, and it became a hit. Suddenly everyone was talking about the Wonder material that would make computer chips thousands of times faster, of an I'm thick sheet that could hold a baby, impenetrable armor batteries that could hold hundreds of times the current energy density and you name it, but suddenly everything just sort Of stopped since 2010, graphene has been on the news, but not as much as used to partially, because the hype slowed down after peak in 2014 now that it went away, but the news, even though we're promising something is still missing. There are many reasons as to why this happened, but the main one comes down to one simple fact that one magical product that we've been waiting for is just not here. Yet that is because of one big problem. Scaling of graphene production has been the challenge for the past nine years, or so there were many proposed ways to produce it, but unfortunately they all fail. At the same point, you see the one major problem that researchers are facing is on how to make a large enough sheet. That is free of defects, especially if you want to make electronic components. In this case, you have to make sure that the sheet is free of defects, or else it won't behave. The magical way that we expect and because of this the race to find ways for mass production is a closely held secret even for universities like MIT, because, ultimately we are talking about easily a billion, if not a trillion dollar industry based in a single material. So we should expect that the race to find bigger and better solutions for mass production to be a fierce one, now scaling up the production is by far the biggest problem. Holding back the adoption of graphene since quantity is very limited and quality is questionable, but another big issue that researchers face with mass production is the misaligned crystal structure of the graphene sheets. This pattern that you see here fundamentally changes the properties of graphene, yielding a less efficient product. You see for you to get all of the magical properties of graphene. You have to have one continuous and uninterrupted sheet. Currently, this is the challenge for electronic components and structural. Strengthening for structural strengthening these misalignments make it easier for the sheet to break or rip with enough stress. As for electronics, it makes it harder for you to create band gaps, so it can be switched off. But we should remember that the silicon industry went through the same problem when they first started, using it to make computer components and just like they had refinement and purity issues. Graphene is going through the same path. The only difference is that we now have a lot more developed technologies that can help speed up the research. Nevertheless, everyone is still waiting for that one product that will revolutionize everything. For instance, everything will change in a matter of seconds if Intel or AMD created a graphene chip. That is a thousand times faster than the current generation, but we are still at least five years away from this technology, so I guess we'll have to wait. Also, you have to keep in mind of how disrupted this would be if any of these companies created this magic chip. Many of the gadgets that we use today would see a sharp declining price, because graphene eventually will become much cheaper. That is not good for business unless you are the startup to develop the technology to which most likely it would be bought by the big company anyway, regardless the introduction of anything as disruptive has to be slow exactly what we are seeing right now. In spite of that, some companies are innovating and although their products aren't magical, graphene is starting to take over some industries. Slowly, as we'll see next [ Music ], there are three main immediate applications. As a thermal insulator, nano-coating and structural. Strengthening these three properties have been tried with other materials for many years, but it is the first time that a single one can do all three of them at such a high level and versatility, but like plastic, which went through many decades of research and development. Since the first polymers were invented in 1869 and the first fully synthetic plastic created in 1907, it was the Second World War that triggered the necessity of plastics and jump-started the industry as a whole. Nowadays, it is believed that the private space race will most likely be the booster for the development of graphene technologies, but fortunately for us, the sports industry is already using in its equipment, and some of the products are already available for you to buy. On a side note, as a curiosity - and you probably didn't know this, but graphene was actually used in the Winter Olympics of 2018 in the skeleton modality. For those of you that don't know it is the one sport where the guy runs in with a small sled and then dives on it, rushing through the frozen track at high speeds, fascinating, to say the least. In this case, they used what they called nanine, which is not really a single sheet of, but more likely a powdery graphene nano plant Elite which would fall more into the carbon fiber polymer. To be honest, the difference here is that nanine is only 10 layers thick, but even then you can still enjoy this strengthening properties of graphene. If you're curious, it was used by the British medalists Dominik Parsons, which won the bronze medal. The concept here and as we'll see more later, is that graphene can be used to strengthen any structure, making a lighter and stronger for further reading. You can head to the nanine web site where they have all of the information you need had. The tennis racquet company has a range of graphene composite rackets available since 2013. This company is actually one of the first to adopt Griffin in its products, and the one that stands out is the Ute, a graphene Speed series, tennis racket in their skis for women. The system here is similar to the nanine, or in this case it is speculated that they used what they call the AGM graphene flakes applied, graphene materials. Aka AGM is a company that is specialised in graphene solutions for commercial applications on their website. They have a wide range of products like graphene and applied, leads paint and coating polymer and composites thermal paste lubricants and energy storage. All of this is done with graphene and O plat elites, which again is not a single sheet, but it gets the job done. Moving on, we have one of the best examples of what can we expect for the future of spaceships, although this next example is not even close to one, the user graphene highlights its potential as a structure. Strengthening material NASA bike is a company based in the UK which claims to have created the first graphene bike frame, although it only contains 1 % of it, but make no mistake, although it looks like an insignificant amount. This is enough to help this structure in many ways, and in this case they achieve the frame weight of about 750 grams without paint, but just not too far from other brands. However, engineers believe that graphene will make it possible to produce frames that can weight less than 400 grams. To achieve this, they applied graphene and applied leech suspended in an epoxy in between the layers of carbon fiber. This method increased the strength of about 70 % or it's almost double the strength of the frame and the cost of the frame is about 8500 USD dollars. And let us not forget the tires Victoria is a bicycle tire manufacturing company that is based in Italy and recently developed a graphene layer filler for its tires, which not only increases puncture resistance but also wet grip and durability. [, Music ], the sports industry, is not the only one benefiting here due to its thermal insulation and dissipation properties. Some companies are already using it in their electronic components due to its excellent thermal conductivity property graphene is by far the best candidate to be used as a heat dissipation in passive or active cooling. A company specialized in computer components called team group made available recently. One of the first computer solid-state drives for their gaming line, products called T fours or the t 4s card, a 0 m dot, 2 PCIe SSD with a graphene, copper, foil, cooling that increased heat dissipation by 8 percent, increasing performance overall and other electronics can also benefit From graphene, which is the case of earphones here due to how thin you can make graphene, it can be used in their Drive membrane or a diaphragm. The diaphragm is the thin semi rigid membrane attached to the voice coil, which moves in a magnetic gap. Vibrating, the diaphragm and producing sound the diaphragm are usually made out of silicone or polyurethane graphene is used here as a layer material to enhance its performance by making more lightweight, which in turn, improves sound sharpness and reduces high frequency bands, giving a better sound experience. Overall. This is yet another example of graphene being used as a structural enhancer. There are mainly two products being sold at the moment of the making of this video, where one is from a Chinese based company called fi io electronics that currently ships to us in Canada anchor another Chinese based company has also made available its graphene enhanced, fully wireless Earphones on its so low audio brand again, the promise here is to enhance sound quality and better younger fien. Photodetector is a big game-changer. This is the first of its kind, as this detector is ultra sensitive, with an ultra wide, visible light detection, ranging from 400 to 1800 nanometers, which could not be achieved with silicon sensors alone. They would often be in part made with the in gas, which is an alloy made out of indium gallium arsenide, which is used to it's wide bandgap properties too, which creates a longer wavelength cutoff due to its rare, LM and complexity of fabrication. Any gas sensor are usually expensive, while the in Burien graphene, filter detector might not require expensive elements is said to reduce the final cost of the photodetector by about 30 percent vole Beck is a company that started back in 2015 by the brothers Nick and Steve Ted Ball with the goal of using science to make the future of clothing happen faster. As its stated in their website in 2018, they introduced a jacket made with graphene and they claim that it's capable of many things like conducting electricity and heat. It'S waterproof and breathable strong, but not bulletproof. Yet in theory, you would need more than thin layers of graphene to stop a low caliber bullet, but since there is no mention on what they were able to achieve, I would expect that they're not too far from reaching that, so maybe by 2020. If you like to get yourself one, you will need about $ 700, but make no mistake. This is only the first of its kind and it won't take long for us to have a bulletproof jacket, since we are only a few layers away from achieving it. [, Music ]. In summary, there are a lot of promising things in the world of graphene, and the message is clear: the next five years will be an exciting time for this technology, as we will see the rise of what was once thought impossible. All of the production problems that we know about are coming to an end. A single material will revolutionize all the industries in the world and just like plastic, it will become part of our daily lives. This video was just to highlight the tip of the iceberg in terms of research and recent findings, so if you would like to get more videos like this, let me know in the comments and don't forget to Like and subscribe. Thank you for watching you

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Graphene – the perfect atomic lattice

Graphene is a form of carbon. As a substance, it is entirely new – not only the thinnest ever but also the strongest. As a conductor of electricity, it performs as well as copper. As a conductor of heat, it outperforms useful conducting metals such as silver and copper. It is completely clear, yet so dense that not even the smallest gas atoms can pass through it. It is so strong that a 1 m2 hammock, no more substantial than a cat’s whisker, could bear the pressure of an average sized cat without breaking.

Graphene

In a world of paradoxes
Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov used a piece of graphene no thicker than the diameter of a hair to investigate the miraculous traits of graphene. The most striking is that electrons traveling in graphene behave as if they did not have any mass and move ahead at a constant speed of one thousand miles per second. This opens up the opportunity of studying certain phenomena more efficiently on a much smaller scale, i.e., without the use of a massive particle accelerator.

Energy distribution of the charge carriers in graphene

Graphene also enables scientists to test for some of the more ghost-like quantum effects that have so far only been discussed theoretically. One such phenomenon is a variant of Klein tunneling, which was formulated by the Swedish physicist Oskar Klein in 1929. This tunnel effect in quantum physics describes how particles can sometimes pass through a barrier that would usually block them – the more significant the wall, the smaller the chance of quantum particles passing through. However, this does not apply to electrons traveling in graphene – in some circumstances; they move ahead as if the barrier did not even exist.

Graphene

Dreamworlds
So far, most of the possible practical applications for graphene exist only in our fantasies. Graphene’s conducting ability has spurred a great deal of interest. Thus graphene transistors are prophesied to be substantially faster than those made out of silicon today. Maybe we are on the verge of yet another miniaturization of electronics that will lead to computers becoming even more efficient in the future.

Graphene

Since graphene is practically transparent (up to nearly 98%) while being able to conduct electricity, it would be suitable for the production of transparent touch screens, light panels, and maybe solar cells. Also, plastics could be made into electronic conductors if only 1% of graphene were mixed into them. Likewise, by mixing in just a fraction of a per mille of graphene, the heat resistance of plastics would increase by 30˚ C while at the same time making them more mechanically robust. This resilience could be utilized in new super durable materials, which are also thin, elastic, and lightweight.

The entire structure of graphene also makes it suitable for the production of sensitive sensors that could register pollution at the molecular level.

Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov
Andre Geim
Dutch citizen. Born 1958 in Sochi, Russia. Ph.D. 1987 from Institute of Solid State Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Chernogolovka, Russia. Director of Manchester Centre for Meso-science & Nanotechnology, Langworthy Professor of Physics and Royal Society 2010 Anniversary Research Professor, University of Manchester, UK.


Konstantin Novoselov
British and Russian citizen. Born 1974 in Nizhny Tagil, Russia. Ph.D. 2004 from Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Professor and Royal Society Research Fellow, University of Manchester, UK.

Playful collaborators
Konstantin Novoselov started working for Andre Geim as a Ph.D. student in the Netherlands. He subsequently followed Geim to the United Kingdom. Both of them began as physicists in Russia; now, they are both professors at the University of Manchester.

Playfulness is one of their hallmarks. With the building blocks they have at their disposal, they attempt to create something new, sometimes even by just allowing their brains to meander aimlessly. One always learns something in the process and, who knows, you may also hit the jackpot. Like now, when with graphene, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov have written themselves into the annals of science.

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What is Graphene?

Graphene is a one-atom-thick layer of carbon atoms organized in a hexagonal lattice. It is the building-block of Graphite (which is used, among others things, in pencil points), but Graphene is a remarkable substance on its own - with several astonishing attributes which frequently earn it the title "wonder material."


Graphene's properties
Graphene is the thinnest substance known to man at one atom thick, and also incredibly strong - about 200 times stronger than steel. On top of that, Graphene is an exceptional conductor of heat and electricity and has outstanding light absorption abilities. It is truly a material that could change the world, with unlimited potential for integration in almost any industry.

For more information on graphene properties, click here.

Potential applications
Graphene is an incredibly diverse material and can be combined with other elements (including gases and metals) to produce different materials with various superior properties. Researchers all over the world continue to investigate continually and patent Graphene to learn its multiple features and possible applications, which include:


Graphene is a new material that is getting considerable attention - especially since the 2010 Nobel prize in physics went to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who first isolated Graphene in 2004.




Producing Graphene
Graphene is indeed very impressive, but creating high-quality materials is still a hurdle. Dozens of businesses around the world are contributing different types, and grades of graphene materials - ranging from high-quality single-layer Graphene synthesized using a CVD-based method to graphene flakes produced from Graphite in high volumes.

High-end graphene sheets are frequently used in R&D activities or extreme applications such as sensors, but graphene flakes, created in high volumes and at lower prices, are adopted in many applications such as sports equipment, consumer electronics, automotive and more.



Graphene products
Several businesses offer Graphene and graphene-based products. You may check our list of Graphene related companies to find a company that produces the products you need.

Today there are several more graphene products on the market. The sports industry was an early adopter, and as early as 2013 HEAD started shipping graphene-enhanced tennis rackets (called YouTek Graphene Speed series). Today one can buy graphene-enhanced helmets, ski equipment, and even Lacrosse gear.

Graphene has also entered the consumer electronics market - for example, Huawei's Mate 20 X smartphone, uses "graphene film cooling technology" for heat management purposes. Another high-profile company that adopts Graphene is Ford - which is using graphene-reinforced foam covers for noisy components in its 2019 F-150 and Mustang cars. The Graphene is infused with foam constituents, and the resulting parts are said to be 17% quieter, 20% more powerful, and 30% more heat-resistant

A new market for Graphene is the sensors market. In 2016, for example, San Diego-based Nanomedical Diagnostics (now called Cardea) started shipping its graphene-based sensors and the AGILE R100 system which allows for real-time detection of small molecules. The graphene sensor offers faster sample processing, higher accuracy, portability, and cost savings. Read more