Graphene Foundry: A New Game-Changer in Production Method that Will Revolutionize Industries

The Revolutionary Material: Graphene

How many of you have heard of graphene? For those who are still unaware of the existence – and especially the properties – of this material, it’s time to take note of the name of this carbon allotrope because, according to several scientists, it could “change the world”.

Graphene was invented in 2004 by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who were later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this groundbreaking discovery.
It consists of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice, a pattern similar to a honeycomb.

Geim and Novoselov isolated graphene from a piece of graphite by transferring carbon atoms onto a layer of silicon dioxide, all using a simple adhesive tape.
Later on, the two scientists managed to evolve the material to construct the so-called double-layer graphene, which provides even more strength and flexibility.

The Potential of Graphene

When the discovery became public knowledge, scientists talked about a potential revolution.
After all, we are dealing with a material that is extremely thin but up to a hundred times stronger than steel.

Moreover, graphene is highly conductive and powerful, currently being used in modern electrical grids, high-efficiency light sources, optoelectronic communication systems, and some semiconductors.

Despite these remarkable properties, the full potential of graphene has not been fully realized so far due to the challenges of producing it cleanly and on a large scale.
However, this issue may now be overcome.

The Future of Graphene

The main challenge with graphene is the difficulty of producing it cleanly and without impurities.
Recently, researchers at Columbia University have published an article in Nature discussing a new process that could allow the production of graphene in a more scalable and cleaner way.

Everything hinges on the discovery that the quality of graphene is tied to oxygen: even a small amount can drastically affect the growth rate, making it unusable.

Graphene has been mainly produced in two ways so far.
The first method involves using adhesive tape to peel layers off a piece of graphite until it is thin enough to be used as graphene, producing clean samples but on such a small scale that they are impractical for industrial use.

The other method allows for much larger-scale production and is known as CVD growth.
This process involves passing a carbon-containing gas – such as methane – over a copper surface at incredibly high temperatures, causing the methane to break down and forcing the carbon atoms to reorganize into a layer of graphene.
However, this method has reliability and quality issues.

“We have shown that eliminating virtually all the oxygen from the growth process is the key to achieving reproducible and high-quality CVD graphene synthesis,” explained James Hone, one of the researchers at Columbia University.
“This is a milestone towards large-scale graphene production.”

This new method would allow graphene to grow faster and more reliably, while still exhibiting all the necessary behaviors that could enable its widespread use: a discovery that, if confirmed, could truly change – and improve – the world.