Graphene

ldquo;With accessible anecdotes and reasoned speculation, Johnson and Meany’s story of graphene will delight popular-science fans.”
 
—Booklist          

“Graphene is a rarity: a book about a complex scientific subject that not only informs and enlightens but also entertains the reader. I came out of this with a new appreciation for something I’d known little about before but now realize is future-shaping. Read this book and behold a miracle of tomorrow.”
 
—Allen Steele, Hugo and Heinlein Award–winning science fiction author

“Purely carbon, graphene is a remarkable material whose properties amaze us and whose applications span all of human activity—from nanotechnology to interstellar flight—maybe even to the evolution of humans. This book delves into the who, what, where, when, why, and how of graphene, with interesting stories and facts, suggesting possibilities that Johnson and Meany say may change the world. With a mix of physics, engineering, history, and culture, there is much to learn as well as to be entertained by here.”
 
—Dr. Louis Friedman, cofounder and executive director emeritus, the Planetary Society

“Graphene is an enjoyable tour of the past, present, and future of the simplest form of carbon. It’s a balanced exploration of the promises of graphene for technology, engineering, and health, along with the risks and challenges. With plenty of historical anecdotes, scientific primers, and forward-thinking speculation, the authors place graphene and graphene-like materials into familiar contexts.”
 
—Matthew R. Francis, physicist and science writer, BowlerHatScience.org

“An enjoyable ride through the history and science of carbon materials, with graphene as the focus of a larger discussion of business, chemical periodicity, unique molecules, and a science-driven future. The authors do a wonderful job describing the promise, problems, pitfalls, and possibilities that likely await graphene—this newest entry into the vibrant world of material science.”
 
—Monty Fetterolf, Professor of Chemistry and Endowed Chair, University of South Carolina Aiken

Auteur

By Les Johnson and Joseph E. Meany

Échantillon de lecture
PREFACE

What if you discovered an infinitesimally thin material capable of conducting electricity, able to suspend millions of times its own weight, and yet porous enough to filter the murkiest water? And what if this substance was created from the same element as that filling the common pencil? This extraordinary material, graphene, is not a work of science fiction. A growing cadre of scientists aims to make graphene a mainstay technological material by the second half of the twenty-first century. Not satisfied with that timeline, some entrepreneurial types would like to see widespread adoption of graphene within the next decade. How could this be possible?

Graphene is elegant. It is created from a single element, carbon, formed by just one type of bond. Despite graphene’s apparent simplicity, isolating the material was an elusive “Holy Grail” for chemists and physicists alike. Even as the periodic table extended beyond the hundred-odd elements naturally found on Earth, galaxies were charted, and the human genome solved, this material, with the simple chemical formula of C, remained a distant goal at the frontiers of science. Why was this? Graphene excels at hiding in plain sight, and the techniques and instrumentation perfected in the last two decades have played a pivotal role in its discovery.

Carbon, the sole constituent of graphene, is all around us. The element is the fourth most common in the entire universe. Most people think of materials in terms of atoms and molecules, where molecules are made from defined types and numbers of atoms. With graphene, counting carbon atoms is inconsequential. Merely the way in which the constituent carbons are bound to one another is crucial, with this feature separating graphene from other wholly carbon materials like diamonds and graphite. At the atomic level, the exclusively carbon graphene resembles a hexagonal “chicken wire” fence, with each carbon atom making up the point of a hexagon. The hexagonal distribution makes graphene’s earth-shattering properties possible, as the distribution allows the individual carbon atoms of graphene to lay flat.

This property of graphene cannot be overlooked. Graphene is a perfect anomaly in the world of chemistry—a flat, two-dimensional molecule, with a single sheet of graphene measuring only one atom thick. You might immediately question the structural integrity of graphene due to its delightfully simplistic construction, but the weaving of the carbon hexagons throughout the structure makes the atomically thin material unexpectedly strong.

Proper application of graphene holds the key to revolutionizing materials technology in the latter half of the twenty-first century, but at what cost? Thankfully, not a substantial environmental one. There is a critical difference between graphene and another linchpin of modern technology, rare-earth metals. These hard-won rare-earth metals, metals including tantalum, neodymium, and lanthanum, are found everywhere, from the inside of our smartphones to pharmaceuticals. Unlike with rare-earth metals, we do not need armies of manual laborers assisted by heavy equipment and an endless parade of fifty-five gallon drums of polluting solvents to find and retrieve graphene, due to one simple fact: graphene’s elemental constituent, carbon, is all around us. The most common precursor of graphene today is the mined mineral graphite. Rare-earth metals are scarce, but the integration of graphene into our lives would not be driven by the acquisition of raw materials and disputes between superpowers, but would be guided by the possession of knowledge, with patents and technology separating the victors and the vanquished.

You have experienced synthesizing graphene, maybe even earlier today, on a very small scale. The pressure exerted by your hand and fingertips likely created a few layers of graphene the last time you ran a pencil across a notepad, turning humble graphite into graphene as you wrote this week’s grocery list. But if graphene can be made by such simple means, and its sole constituent, carbon, leads oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen in the hierarchy of elements that construct our living world, why is graphene just now, in the twenty-first century, coming to the forefront of human understanding?
 
The answer to this question is where the story resides. The story of graphene is a story of accidental discovery. A story of corporations and governments racing to spend billions of dollars in hopes of funding research and development projects to discover a material still years away from store shelves. A story of new materials that will disrupt the way we create things, and, in doing so, what we can create. The previous technological revolutions taught us many things. Each new discovery allowed us to break into new experimental territories and further our understanding of what is possible to accomplish. Chemical batteries allowed energy to be stored for future use (like light at night). Steam power allowed us to generate tremendous amounts of energy to accomplish tasks no living thing could. This new revolution may allow us to throw off the shackles of metallic wires.

If you are curious about science, economics, history, or the vague point where all three of these topics overlap, then you will probably enjoy this book. If you already know what graphene is, then you might wonder where and why history might play into such a recent discovery. After all, graphene as a …