Graphene - Couverture souple

Johnson, Les

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1633883256 ISBN 13 : 9781633883253

Editeur : G38-Prometheus, 2018

Synopsis

Two scientists give an enthusiastic, layperson's overview of a new supermaterial now in development that could transform many features of daily life, from creating new conveniences to improving health and safety.

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 incredible substance is created from the same element that fills the common pencil? That's graphene--a flat, two-dimensional, carbon-based molecule with a single sheet measuring only one atom thick.

In this layperson's introduction to this revolutionary substance, a physicist and a chemist explain how graphene was developed, discuss the problems in scaling up production for large-scale commercial use, and forecast the potentially transformative effects of incorporating graphene into everyday life. Recent research developments include adding graphene to Silly Putty to make extremely sensitive and malleable medical sensors and compressing and fusing flakes of graphene to create a three-dimensional material that's ten times stronger than steel.

This widely adaptable substance promises to change the way we interact with smartphones, laptops, information storage, and even condoms. It may also enable significant improvements to air purification, water filtration technologies, and drug delivery.

This entertaining and widely accessible book offers a fascinating look into one of the most exciting developments in materials science in recent decades.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Les Johnson is a physicist and the author of numerous popular science and science fiction books. He is also the Senior Technical Adviser for NASA's Advanced Concepts Office at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where he serves as the Principal Investigator for the Near Earth Asteroid Scout solar sail mission that will launch in 2018. While at NASA he has managed the Interstellar Propulsion Research Project, the In-Space Propulsion Technology Program, and the Science Programs & Projects Office. He has thrice received NASA's Exceptional Achievement Medal, and holds four space technology patents.

Joseph E. Meany, PhD, is a laboratory consultant and is on the organizing committee of the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop, Oak Ridge, TN. Meany's research has focused on the development and manufacture of conductive carbon-based molecules in electrical circuits, a quickly developing subfield within nanotechnology. He has written articles for Baen Books and has appeared as a contributor in Nature Chemistry and Chemical and Engineering News.

Extrait. © Reproduit sur autorisation. Tous droits réservés.

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 material for the future has only been in the news for about ten years.

Since at least the 1950s, people have been trying to take graphite out of the ground and turn it into a pile of black gold. This effort was met with fifty years of resistance from the graphite, which has not so easily been coaxed to divulge its secrets. When graphene was finally isolated and examined, physicists and chemists were astounded at what they found.The history beneath this discovery is not so straightforward, though, and it traces its roots all the way back to 1859 in Great Britain. How appropriate,then, that the country already well-known for its history involving carbon should be the country where single-layer graphite was finally witnessed.

After two researchers in Great Britain, Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010, technology magazines everywhere heralded a new era of “wonder materials” based around this atomically thin tessellation of carbon atoms. With its incredibly high strength and almost impossibly low electrical resistance, graphene pulled back a hidden curtain, allowing scientists to catch a glimpse of the marvels that lay beyond. With the shrouds lifted, the groundwork was laid to revolutionize how we will go about designing and making everything from cars to vaccines and from food packaging to spaceships.

The economic potential of this material cannot be understated. Being atomically thin, graphene can be incorporated almost seamlessly into any modern product, with appreciable effect. Early investors were burned, however, by entrepreneurs who over-promised and under-delivered on performance aspects for products (especially composites like plastics) that had graphene in them but that did not use graphene in a way that made its incorporation worth the added expense. It was, in some cases, just an added bit of snake oil. As the overall volume from new production methods and the quality of the resulting graphene have both increased with time, we are starting to finally see graphene’s true benefits. Governmental support is higher than ever in many countries, as whoever discovers a high-throughput production method for pristine graphene will reap significant financial rewards on the world stage.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: G38-Prometheus
• Date d'édition: 2018
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1633883256
• ISBN 13: 9781633883253
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 272
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV, GPSR Europäische Union; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; AA Utrecht; 3584; Pays-Bas