In 2004, University of Manchester Professors Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Greim applied a strip of scotch tape to a piece of graphite, the material used in most pencil leads. When they peeled it off, they became the first people in history to isolate what quickly became known as the material of the future: graphene.
Graphene’s material properties make it potentially revolutionary across an array of technologies. It is around 13 times more thermally conductive than aluminum, has approximately five times the tensile strength of steel, and is only exceeded in electrical conductivity by high-performing electrical conductors like copper and silver.
These discoveries quickly gave rise to expectations that graphene would soon revolutionize how we store energy, build semi-conductors, and manufacture composite materials. It is over 20 years after graphene’s discovery, however, and those expectations haven’t exactly come to fruition.
The road to commercializable graphene-enhanced technologies has been wrought with challenges, primarily with graphene production. It is extremely difficult and expensive to produce graphene at scale, and while a plethora of techniques have been developed to produce the material, none of them successfully produce both a high yield and purity.
The majority of potential graphene applications, such as use in batteries, demand a high degree of graphene purity, Other possible applications require graphene producers to be capable of supplying the material in very specific, hard-to-achieve layouts. Use in semiconductors, for example, necessitates the graphene be supplied to chip manufactures laid on top of a miniscule silicon substrate.
As a result, most industries are waiting for graphene manufacturing technology to advance further before they can integrate them into their products. There is, however, one major commercial application of graphene that has made it out of the laboratory: concrete.
Traditionally, steel rods called rebar are used to reinforce concrete, particularly when a pulling force is being applied. The rebar absorbs a significant amount of that force, known as tensile force, increasing the overall strength of the concrete.
Graphene can tolerate five times the amount of tensile force that steel can, meaning that adding it into concrete mixes strengthens the concrete significantly more than rebar, and yields greater durability.
Increasing the strength of concrete mix decreases the amount of concrete builders have to use on any given building, potentially saving them money and time.
Reducing concrete usage also represents a reduction in CO2 emissions. Cement, the binding agent in concrete mixtures, is produced by using heat to break calcium carbonate (CaCO3) down into calcium oxide (CaO) and carbon dioxide (CO2). This carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere.
CaCO3 -> CaO + CO2
The process also requires an incredible amount of energy, with temperatures of up to 1,500 ℃ (2732 ℉) needed in order to initiate breakdown.
In 2021, Southern Quarter Gym in Amesbury, England became the world’s first building constructed out of graphene-enhanced cement. Since then, companies selling graphene concrete additives and mixtures have become more common in the market.
The largest functional challenge that the technology faces is the dispersion of graphene within the concrete mixture. Graphene tends to aggregate in aqueous solutions, which can result in non-uniform dispersion of the material within mixtures. The end result is weak spots within concrete structures.
Companies have addressed this issue by using graphene oxide, a derivative of graphene, instead of the pure material. Graphene oxide more readily disperses throughout water-based solutions. It decreases the likelihood of weak spots within the concrete, but it comes with a sacrifice of strength: graphene oxide is significantly weaker than pure graphene, a fact that increases the amount of concrete necessary for graphene oxide mixes as opposed to properly dispersed graphene ones.
Either way, these functional obstacles have not been serious enough to prove lethal to the concept.
Right now, the largest barrier to widespread adoption of graphene and graphene oxide concrete mixes is cost. Graphene oxide mixes, for example, are estimated to be five to 10 times more expensive than traditional concrete mixes.
Despite that, the technology is worth keeping on your radar. The cost of these mixtures are directly tied to the price of graphene and graphene-derivative materials. Right now, those prices are high due to the manufacturing limitations mentioned earlier, however there are a slew of companies working to overcome them. If they do manage such an advancement, graphene mixtures could become cheaper, and are likely to enter broad use, with the potential to lessen the price of construction projects worldwide.
Don’t expect that to happen tomorrow, or even soon. Despite that, the technology is worth keeping on your radar. Knowing what to expect in the event of graphene production improving would give anyone navigating business or investment decisions surrounding the emerging technology a leg up.
