Do you think graphene is going to change industries like energy storage and construction, or is it all still hype? And thanks to today's sponsor ... get Surfshark VPN at surfshark.deals/undecided and enter promo code UNDECIDED for 83% off and 3 extra months for free! If you liked this video, check out "Why This Fusion Tech May Be a Geothermal Energy Breakthrough" - ua-cam.com/video/g8sjdOjNxIE/v-deo.html
I already use Graphene coatings on the cars we detail, and it does seem to be a step forward in spray coatings , being more durable than the previous spray Ceramic coatings….👍🇮🇲
@@Cat-qw4ir I don’t think so, it still need the torsional strength of the rebar, but it does reduce the amount required, plus it has corrosion resistance 👍
My concern about graphene is its long term impact on the environment. We know, for instance, that precautions must be taken when handling graphene to prevent it becoming airborne and being inhaled. In sheet form, it is relatively stable and inert, but when we embed nanomaterials in products that wear, like the soles of footwear, vehicle tires, or concrete, we have to assume it is going to enter the environment on a very small scale during their slow breakdown. According to the European Commission adopted 2011 Recommendation on Nanomaterials: Fullerenes, graphene flakes and single wall carbon nanotubes with one or more external dimensions below 1nm should be considered as nanomaterials. We all know what a nightmarish threat earlier nanomaterials like asbestos, finely powdered silicates, and even today with micro plastic particles were all discovered to pose long after their adoption in industrial and consumer products. In addition to simple inhalation risks which are relatively low in the outdoors, researchers said that (as with asbestos and coal dust, and other smooth, continuous, biopersistent particles) graphene can enter the body and may have the ability to instigate tumour growth. There is minimal reliable environmental data on graphene regarding its bioaccumulation or mobility in environmental media. The way I see it, we need to do our due diligence researching and vetting these materials for long term environmental and human health impacts before we turn to them as a panacea for our carbon emission problems.
Excellent point. The main uses of graphene nano-particles that interest me are in electronics where they hopefully won't escape into the environment though some precautions should certainly be taken since people do throw away electronics rather than recycle them (I've actually got a decent amount that I want to recycle but next to no options to actually do so, especially if I want to get something in return for the precious metals inside). Concrete is an interesting use but as you said we need to make sure the nano-particles won't cause any problems down the road. I've read about work on graphene sheets which could enable the creation of some really strong materials, not sure how likely it is for small pieces to break off.
Great point. Thanks for your comment, I have been on the graphene train since I first heard about it about 6 years ago. You have given me reason to pause and think.
When you describe the benefits of graphene in concrete it really sounds very similar to the benefits of mixing in asbestos. Given the tiny particle sizes I hope someone stops to do a cost benefit analysis on potential health impacts and the impact of future abatement strategies and costs before this gets widely deployed. I feel like industry would love to spread millions and millions of tons of this stuff around before safety regulators catch on. Carbon nanotubes have the same problem I see people playing with it like the ultra black paints which are super cool but fragile and I saw a study comparing the inhalation risk in rats of nanotubes vs asbestos and it was at least as bad but likely worse. It makes intuitive sense that nanoscale indestructible fibers would not be good for our lungs.
Carbon graphite has been around a very long time, it proved much safer than lead pencils and has been used as a lubricant. Isolating one layer by pulling graphite apart is not creating a new chemical and calling them indestructible is silly when the toughest form of carbon, diamond is burnt at a relatively low temperature. Carbon chains and rings are common organic chemistry
Graphene production at scale is subject to REACH regulations, just like any other chemical, and this includes toxicology tests which so far have indicated it is safe.
@@RobBCactive Thank you for your replay. I'm sorry that in my comment I was not as clear as I could have been since I switched subjects from graphene to C nanotubes. "Indestructible" was somewhat of a rhetorical flourish when I should more accurately have said "bioaccumulative". Of course the material can be destroyed industrially, but one of its desirable industrial properties is that it is highly insoluble in water, and when you process it you can end up with very small particles that your organs can't filter out and can get into your bloodstream. So if you release a lot of this into the environment it seems likely to create problems. Like PFAs/PFOAs, they aren't going to hurt you immediately probably even with high exposures, but it sticks around and eventually causes problems. It may be difficult to detect contamination and filtration may not be effective for the smaller particles that are the ones we need to be concerned about. Here is one study that concluded there is potentially some Graphene bioaccumulation possible: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.7b04339 REACH isn't going to necessarily help American consumers or people in Asian countries where it's being manufactured. REACH isn't done studying the material. They show that it doesn't exhibit acute toxicity but they do classify it as having long lasting negative effects on aquatic life because it sticks around. PFAs and silicates don't have acute toxicity either so I don't think we should let down our guard based on that. echa.europa.eu/substance-information/-/substanceinfo/100.227.924 I do not think that we should abandon the use of Graphene as it has lots of exciting potential but I am saying that we need to proceed with caution and maybe limit the applications so that we can control the pollution or recycle the material properly. And ensure that production waste streams are controlled. For example, not deploying it to residential construction where homeowners will eventually dispose of it improperly. After all there are still some industrial applications of asbestos that we have not been able to eliminate because of its superior properties...that doesn't mean it should be widely deployed the way that it was in the 60's.
Graphene in my mind has moved from disappointing Back to exciting me , maybe because I dropped my expectations from when I first heard of it. I think now we have the right ideas for it, let graphene improve do all the little things that it can improve and as it’s use scales up it will start to do everything we thought it could . We all wanted the grand slams but to get there we need a few singles to load the bases! Another great posting Matt
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket 1965 actually, but neither of these years matter because lithium didn't actually get implemented until the early 1990s which is when we achieved a power density level that was acceptable for the masses. Sony and Asahi Kasei released the first commercial lithium-ion battery in 1991. Before that it was just us playing around with materials and improving on the original design but even then we still looked at NiCad/NiMH as the solution because it did the job and it was much cheaper.. ( improvements like the implementation of a graphite anode, which replaced a soft carbon one and upped density levels, but wasn't feasible to make until the early 90s). wasn't really even until the early 2000s that we actually see them in normal consumer things like the original iPod in 2002 due to cost. Lion powered tools and such didn't see the light of day until the mid to late 2000s.(2005 Home Depot and Harbor Freight still pushed Nicad/NiMH tools for example) Energizer did develop lithium AA cells in 1991....but we wouldn't see those become popular until about 10 years later.
With basically any new material coming from the lab the hype is grand. It needs to be funded and people following this type of news generally love to speculate and dream of the future. What's possible isn't always feasible, especially where pragmatism is involved.
This is an exciting area of research and application. I actually recently became friends with someone who moved to our small town and works for a company developing graphene additive based concrete solutions utilizing low grade graphene. They've determined that the graphene dramatically decreases drying/setting time, increases strength and durability all the while reducing production costs and environmental impact. It seems very promising and is a cool new(ish) area of material research.
@@Ryanrulesok I'll be honest, I don't recall the company. I was too interested in what they are doing to remember the company's name which was mentioned at the beginning of our first conversation.
"graphene dramatically decreases drying/setting time, increases strength and durability all the while reducing production costs and environmental impact." WOW!!!! That must be a multi trillion dollar company now .....
@@fewwiggle probably would be, except, as per the whole point t of this video, graphene is still very hard to produce, much less produce at a reliable, scalable level that could be commercialized. Of course, having some stock in the right companies, when graphite does become scalably produced … might be a good thing.
For me, graphene was never unexciting. The issue with graphene is mostly that journalists and others basically imagined that it could be made, and integrated into our society in an extremely unrealistic timeframe. Heck even if you had the technology just the time required to build a factory would've fallen short on their unrealistic projections, thus people got convinced that it was all hype and no substance. Conversely my takeaway has mostly been that it WILL be amazing, but that we need to scale production first, something which it looks like is genuinely happening now.
Remember, it’s only been a single human lifespan since any living thing on this planet has even seen the far side of the moon. Some people have an odd view of patience.
The CO deposition method is interesting. I wonder how they go about separating from the copper substrate. One note is the supposed elimination of explosive gasses is inaccurate. CO is a highly flammable and explosive gas. Of course you'll be long dead from poisoning before it reaches the lower explosive limit in a room.
Honestly didn’t even know CO was flammable much less explosive. Now that I really think about it CO2 is almost the weirder one, just a bunch of carbon and oxygen and it puts OUT fires weird.. lol
8:43 Something not mentioned is that stronger concrete means less concrete is needed overall, this reduces the overall CO2 output per structure. Also means that buildings can have smaller support elements which means structures can have more usable space.
The Jevons paradox states that if less something is needed, the falling cost only increases the demand and the efficiency gains are negated. People would use cement for things they now use cheaper materials (like wood) and the overall carbon effect might be close to zero or even negative
Yeah, or we stop using concrete and use far mor healthy and environmentally friendly materials. Also at 100$ a gramm... I don't see it happening in the next ten to twenty years, at least not for spaces where people actually live in (interesting though for bridges, reactors, safe houeses, bunkers, etc.)
That would be nice. Concrete in residential construction is often so much larger than all the other components in a vertical structure that designers, architects and carpenters are constantly compensating in countless compromises to make final layers line up.
I've been working with First Graphene products for 18mth and developing a Graphene enhanced shotcrete which has proved to have not just good strength, but also very good workability properties. Thanks for making this video and sharing how Graphene is making great progress as a new and exciting material.
Shotcrete is the spray on concrete like substance that is lighter and faster drying, and often thinner (layered, maybe?) right? I remember working with someone who was making chicken-wire shaped forms and using what I think was called shotcrete to bring structure and substance to them. Or was it the injected air that made it a much more insulating material? Too many contradictory claims on the internet to find actual, trustworthy information, and here you pop up in my feed as an expert! Thank you in advance.
From what you presented here, graphene in concrete is one of the first uses that not only makes sense but can be manufactured at scale. If concrete can be made more environmentally friendly, robust, durable, and lighter, it will bring significant benefits to builders everywhere. It will probably take years to develop practical applications for the stuff that remains in the lab. Nevertheless, labs worldwide continue to research, and eventually, a breakthrough will happen that will fulfill the promise of this fantastic material. I appreciate your keeping us current with all that is happening in this space.
It's only make the concrete stronger and to some degree more durable but actually less environmental friendly. Hovewer, in some cases due to the increased strenght it can reduce the needed thickness of structures resulting in lighter and more environmental friendly structures due to less material used. This is not viable for all types of structures due to differ reasons and in some cases it's worth it and others not. In some cases there already are additives that gives the same result but cheaper. So it's not a total revolutionary material in the building sector but another possible solution to be used in the right situations.
@@Withnail1969 It does have the alleged effect and is already being used where it's beneficial and the extra cost can be accepted. The cost of graphene in sufficient amounts is high and it's therefore rarely used. We do have alot of studies on graphene reinforced concrete with good results and also have a good general understanding of how nano and micro reinforced concrete behave from other reinforcment materials. For example the increased fire protection comes from the reinforcement greatly reduces spalliation of the protective concrete layer when exposed to high heats (fire). The protective layer can therefore be reduced and the protection is more controllable. Today this fire protection is mainly done in large tunnels with polypropylene fibers but the same effect have been seen with graphene which is an interesting alternative due to the increased strength. Which would make the reinforcement have multiple purposes. But due to the price it's still far from a common solution in large projects and much further from being used in normal buildings.
It needs to reduce its price from $100/g to $0.1/g to be attractive for most concrete uses. Clinker has a ton price of $48/ton, and reducing the needed clinker by 20% by adding 0.01% graphene at current prices increases the per ton price to $1038/ton. Except in extreme niche cases, it is basically unusable unless the price drops drastically.
I’m gratified to see that graphene is making its way into commercial products at this time. And I’m excited for the possibilities that it holds for our near future, and beyond.
Indeed. Just to think that a mere 10 years ago it was still majorly on a lab basis, to now being decently commercialized. Commercialization is always the biggest hurdle with new promising technologies, and serves as the proof of concept that graphene is here to not just stay, but to evolve even further in the next decade. The vast majority of development of a new technology happens AFTER it becomes commercially viable. And that's where we are at now.
Right, but I'd like to know more about possible toxicity. It's incredibly light and strong, so what happens if there are shards of this stuff flying around. We have nanoparticles of plastic in the ecosystem, including found even in people's blood, so what happens when we get similar bits of graphene floating around. What happens if you breath that stuff, for instance?
@@cv990a4 can it be worse than DuPont dumpy the Teflon shit straight into rivers? To think 3M even warned DuPont of the necessity of not releasing any of it. Now we all have scotch guard in every cell of our bodies. What’s to worry about a little graphene in the mix? Every year we keep burning fossil fuels will just mean another thousand years of hell on earth!
An interesting primer for the uninitiated but it’s a shame Versarien hasn’t registered on your Graphene Radar (even though you actually used some footage of a concrete pour using their graphene!). Not only is their graphene being commercially used in pours regularly now but their own proprietary mix ‘Cementene’ is about to revolutionise 3D printing of buildings and is set to be used in the HS2 high speed rail system in the UK. Oh, and did I mention that they are also already producing large sheet, defect free CVD sheets in collaboration with their partners Graphene Lab in South Korea? Throw in a new range of Graphene-wear clothing for Umbro and SuperDry, tires specially formulated for higher torque EVs with Enso, amongst other projects and you can start to see they are a name to watch…
_They_ are a name to watch? _They?_ 🤔 If you work for the company you should really be using the word "we". Your post reeks of paid-for advertising written by committee and 'liked' by in-house supporters.
@@ooooneeee he's just saying some positive benefits of graphene that are already being produced and realized from a commercial standpoint. he's saying take a look at this company, not "here is a paragraph of every pro/con aspect of my post".
For years (decades) laser was considered a brilliant solution for which noone knew the problem. Today society is totally dependent on the lasers embedded in most of our electronics and communications. Sometimes a new technology needs a few improvements before widespread adoption is possible. For lasers, a key development was the semi-conductor laser. For graphene, it may be a cheap, realiable, consistently high-quality production method.
Your analogy of the laser doesn't apply here. We all know the problems that graphene would be a brilliant solution to. No one is waiting for another technology to come along to make graphene an amazing product. Cheap, reliable, consistently high-quality production methods are what _everything_ needs, not just graphene.
"From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Matthew 4:17 "But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." Matthew 5:39•
I suspect that graphene will be one of those products that becomes more and more useful in more and more products. However the expectations set by the over-hyping will lead many people to always feel that it has fallen short of expectations never mind the fact that it might end up making huge differences where it finds a foothold. It will always feel too little too late.
I think the hype is merely at the consumer level. It appears industries are already using it in some forms more commonly than we expected and expanding into other industries and usages at a pace that can sustain the innovation, like upgrading the machinery, etc without significant sticker shock. I think the industries that benefit from it themselves will help innovate application methods as well making it more accessible for us.
Rice Labs also has an incredible graphene production method called flash joule heating, that not only produces graphene from any plastic materials but also elemental hydrogen and oxygen. They've already tested the method with Ford motors and created a close to perfectly circular recycling process
As I understood it, the flash processing was to be out of the lab and ramping commercial production by late last summer. I haven’t watched the majority of the video yet, but I’ll be very surprised to see the Rice University graphene production method mentioned. If it is, I’ll have to edit my comment.
For CO2 savings from improvements in concrete, you missed an opportunity to explain how improvements in compression and tensile strength drastically reduces the amount of concrete needed for a given project. If you need less because it’s stronger, then you also need less because the project weighs less. It’s a virtuous cycle. It would be interesting to see it quantified by a structural engineer.
In an age of both wonder and instant gratification, we often overlook some simple facts that much older generations understood: progress actually takes time. The fact that you are talking about a two year time frame from the first video about graphene's potential, to actual products using graphene is mind boggling, not disappointing. Graphene has not been over hyped, all of the potential applications are still potential applications, what has happened is over expectations of ease of development. A few years ago, it wasn't even known how to make commercial quantities of graphene. Now it's sold in bulk. Some of the other problems will be solved soon also because it is so potentially profitable and life altering for humanity.
Collectively we heard the internal combustion engine was invented and went straight to expecting a Ferrari. Then we got annoyed we haven't got it yet, while people working with it started to put together a Model T. When its in the market proper we'll have forgotten the drama completely while marvelling we don't have to walk everywhere. Business and journalism are obsessed with "Moon shot" thinking where the first thing we should focus on is always, always, always MVP - Minimum Viable Product. Its nice to know where we're going but we have to first pay attention to how we're going to get there.
Matt, have you heard of anyone doping aluminum with graphene? Aluminum is 60% as conductive as copper and so if aluminum could become as conductive as copper it would massively alter the market.
@@xBox360BENUTZER Copper is already conducive enough and aluminum needs the help to be as conductive. Aluminum is lighter and cheaper than copper. Is graphene wire available in the market? If so, are they are inexpensive as copper per pound?
Are Graphene micro flecks safe? At the micron size with a nanomaterial seems like breathing it in might be a bad idea. The research on its toxicity seems mixed but there doesn't appear to be a clear its non-toxic consensus yet. By sticking graphene into everything are we risking starting an asbestos 2.0 era of toxic concrete, coatings, insulation, paints, ...
Finding simple and ubiquitous uses (like better concrete) will drive the incentive to ramp production and reduce costs. Looking forward to having a graphene tent over my home to keep hail from destroying it.
I am surprised you didn't mention the "Flash Graphene" process developed by Rice University that produces high quality graphene from waste material cheaply. This has the potential to produce graphene and solve much of our waste problems at the same time, without the chemicals usually required for many existing production methods.
I was looking to see if someone mentioned this, I figured if I had read about it, surely he had. It sounded too good to be true but certainly plausible.
A relatively unexplored subject is the relationship between graphene, carbon nanotubes, and bamboo charcoal. Also, well not on the nanoscale, Bamboo fiber can also be used to drastically reinforced concrete, and minimize cracking.
Bamboo reinforcement is and has been used in concrete commonly in places like Cambodia. I believe bamboo is incorporated into the concrete because it is cheaper than metal reinforcement and was readily available locally. It was used in places like parking lots. In these locations I would suggest that the locals are very well aware of the properties of using bamboo in concrete. Concrete mixes are adjusted based on costs and availability of various materials.
In the U.S. it's still virtually unknown even though the U.S. military has stated that it wants split bamboo to be used in place of rebar in the construction of future ocean side bases. Also, the use of chipped/shredded bamboo mulch in concrete hasn't received much publicity.
One of the first concerns that I saw when graphene came on the scene were medical studies of disease and cancer from inhaling nanoparticles. Which, fair. I don't know if it is or is not proven either way by this time? But regardless, I do know that I would be a lot more likely to trust graphene used in *internal* designs. Whereas use of graphene in concrete? A material we know breaks down over time? Even if that breakdown is an even longer time than the same product without graphene, that's still concerning. Whatever we do with this wonder material, I sincerely hope that we are not repeating the asbestos as a building material crisis for a future generation.
I like it, but. If this gets scaled up to industrial dimensions, what will happen with thousands of tons of little brittles of graphene released, ending up in landfills, as dust in the air and soil, as flimsy very membranous particles in rivers and oceans? What happens if a microbe eats it? It is not a material that ever existed in any significant quantities in nature, and throughout the entire evolution the biosphere has never before encountered this stuff. What could possibly go wrong? Have you thought about this? Any one?
Revolutionary materials are never breakthroughs in and of themselves. Graphene, steel, plastic and other wonder materials only enable huge breakthroughs in manufacturing and materials science and through those breakthroughs create improvements. Knowing a material can exist/ can be made and having large enough quantities of it to do something useful are two very different things.
Also, if lowering C02 emissions is the goal, we always need to factor in the C02 produced in getting to that goal, which seems to be a question almost no one asks. It's part of why "green" energy solutions are rarely green. Electric cars have 0 emissions but creating them and their batteries creates as many problems as it solves. Graphene is no different. If all we care about is C02 emissions, we need to start doing ALL the math.
Graphene is toxic and may be carcinogenic. However it does seem to degrade more easily than for instance PFOS. It is important to take the health and enronmental effects into consideration when producing and using graphene.
I was born only 47 years ago. In that time we have seen a bunch of exponential improvements in a wide range of things. This looks like another one. It's easy to forget how unprecedented it is historically to witness that amount of change in one life time. And I hope to live another few decades. My feeling is that things are happening faster, not slower. This graphene thing is evolving extremely rapidly. If anything, people seem a bit spoiled with their need for instant gratification and dismissal for anything that fails to yield results during their short attention spans. The ironic thing with graphene is that a lot of things happened while these people were distracted by other things and they are still peddling the same arguments as a few years ago, which are simply no longer valid.
Matt, it's not just hype. The Clinker reduction can certainly help the Carbon footprints of Concrete manufacturers. It does sure feel a long way off though due to scaling issues and high up front nonrecurring costs for tooling and other expenses.
It is much closer than you think. In the case of First Graphene, it's an admixture at the clinker stage and no retooling is required. Check out recent interviews with CEO, Mike Bell on UA-cam. This company is a mile ahead of the competition in this space. They may also want to checkout the company's website
And it is horribly expensive as an additive to cement. $100/g of graphene equals $100 million per ton of graphene. Even if you only need 0.01% to reduce clinker by 20%, that still increases the cost from $48/ton clinker to $1038/ton of mixed clinker and graphene.
Would graphene sheets be good for solar sails, drum skins, tarps, tents, non-stick pots, rain collectors, hammocks, parachutes, body armor, boat paint, skating rinks, road surfacing, pond liners, anti-fouling and anti-rust coatings?
I think the hype around graphine was correctly placed, just a little early. Graphine has a huge potencial to influence engineering of products with its strength, and conductivity being key factors. The only think limiting the use of graphine currently is not technical, but ecomonic. Its producing it in such volumes that the cost is justified for the benefit. think of the grid cables example. graphine will only really be used in grid cables if the cost per mile of cable, is less than savings from the per mile efficiency difference with copper cable. over the lifespan of the cable. if a graphine cable costs double the amount. but only reduces transmission losses by 1/4 then its not going to be worth the cost. However if the graphine cable costs 1/4 more but saves >1/4 of the transmission losses, then everyone will start using it. OR if it costs 1/4 more. however has the same transmission losses but lasts twice as long before needing replacing. or any combination. so long as the economics make sense it will have customers. but whilst its expensive, very few are going to utilise the material.
This is a critical consideration. The copper price right now is about $9,322/metric tonne. That comes out to just under $0.01/gram. Compare that to what Matt said in the video, that graphene prices have come down to $100/gram. If it requires the same amount of material to carry the same amount of power, then there is a real barrier to adoption here. If graphene is much more efficient, then the playing field will tilt more in the direction of level, but it will have to be hugely more efficient to get to level.
I work at an auto parts store and we have begun carrying wash and wax products with graphene in it. Adam's and Turtle Wax are just a couple of brands that now include it.
Every conversation about graphene for over decade begins with "Graphene could...." . Now I just watch these graphene videos and lol. I'll see you again in 10 years in another video on this exact same subject.
I think the main reason graphene was/is seen as disappointing is because of a misunderstanding of how long it will take for it to come to market, and how impatient the internet has made us. We were only first able to isolate it and test its properties in 2004, getting it to market in some way less than 20 years later is extremely quick. I think a relatively high amount of the promises that media told us about graphene are eventually going to come to market, especially given how high the hype was in the 2010s.
I knew I’d see a video about this soon. Been waiting on an update on graphene. It’s world-changing. Technology needs countless studies to unveil the proven science. It’ll be here soon
As an engineer, it makes me tired that anything new has to be used in critical systems straight away. Just use it in none-critical functions first, test it long term and then use it in critical functions. That would require some gov money, but this is why we should vote for politicians that are engineers. This will speed up the development.
Dr. James Tour and his team at Rice University have cracked the code on manufacturing graphene with the *"Flash joule heating"* process. Electrically zapping anything carbon-based into graphene. FR.
Nah, it takes more than just putting tape on pencil to get graphene. Dozens of cycles until you isolate single layers, I doubt a lot of people have had the patience to do that without reason...
I'm just wondering whether the long term biological effect of concrete dust containing graphene was thoroughly researched. I don't want another asbestos fiasco.
That's a very good point. I know breathing cement dust isn't good for you. When you add graphene particles I don't know what would happen. Every positive has negatives. I wonder what this one will have.
What are you even talking about? Asbestos? Time to do some reading on graphene. Graphene isn’t cancer-causing like asbestos is. Also people new asbestos made people sick, but they used it anyways. If graphite was dangerous, we wouldn’t use it in everything from pencils to lubricants. Also plain concrete dust is far more dangerous and cancer-causing then graphene could ever be.
@@ericmcquisten Graphite is not the same a graphene. And while people used asbestos since the stone age, the dangers to people became more well known only after they started to use it industrially and made more research on it so it makes sense to make research on something BEFORE starting to use it wide scale in the industry. And how would you even know whether concrete dust is more dangerous than graphene if it isn't/wasn't researched? 🤔
04? My physical science teacher taught me about it in high school 1987. We were doing graphite pencil on paper and then looking through a microscope at the lattice work. He said back then that if you learned how to harness it and produce it cheaply that you would make a fortune. Rest in peace Mr A
I'm worried graphene pollution is going to be worse than plastic and asbestos combined. It's insanely hard to filter and dangerous for the human body when ingested. I'd love to see your thoughts on this.
There is no evidence that graphene is harmful when ingested. It's inert. The body is basically carbon. I don't know about inhalation risk. Many dusts are dangerous. It is possible to deal with the risk.
@@peterinns5136 I've been reading about this since people were initially messing with graphene, there is a ton of information about it. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6448540/#:~:text=The%20antibacterial%20activity%20of%20graphene,110%20or%20%2Dindependent%20oxidative%20stress.&text=Some%20authors%20report%20that%20the,lethal%20damage%20to%20cellular%20integrity.
It looks like at this point in time all the puzzle pieces click together and all the problems from the different disciplines are solving each others quandaries
What a great channel ! I’m an analyst for a VC fund in the clean tech sector. We invested in a graphene company. So far, pretty complicated to get it out into the market
*Concrete is porous, while graphene is impermeable. Putting graphene in concrete could not only make it less brittle, but could result in concrete foundations that are resistant to water infiltration in wetter soil environments.*
Graphene doesn't live in a vacuum. Whenever you propose to actually use it for something it is surrounded by other stuff. The electronic properties of graphene on silicon are not the same as the properties of graphene in a vacuum. As soon as you mix it with something else you have to check what the properties of the combined system are.
I've seen the graphene battery bank and I've wanted one ever since but it's still not available in my country and the one time it was it went out of stock almost immediately, the thing is they still have to scale up production of whatever they use it on in a proper way to actually make it viable
Thank you for another great video! Graphene seems like it has a bright future as a "secret" ingredient in many different products, making them them more efficient in different ways. But someone still has to come up with a better way of mass producing it. Coming down in price by two orders of magnitude in 12 years is an impressive achievement, but if graphene is going to become a major part of the economy they still need to knock another zero off. Or two.
This is still a technology that is super young. Seems to be moving into realization rather rapidly. People today are desperate for new tech because of the straits we are in ,thus everything gets over hyped. Graphene will be commonplace in a decade.
I'm imagining all the medical applications as well for graphene. There's literally applications for it in pretty much every single industry in some way shape or form.
With emissions now up to 40 gigaton say year, we burn through the 2C budget in 2026. There's no way Humanity does not burn through the 3C budget sometime between 2050 and 2060.
I like this channel and the presentation of new, upcoming technologies, but more than anything it reminds me of my childhood in the 1980s where I used to love reading "Popular Mechanics" (probably still exists? I haven't looked lately) where all these future technologies were laid out to happen in the 1990s or 2000s. I'm sure some of them have come true along the way, but mostly it seemed like hype and just made for fun reading back in the day.
Go to your local Lowe's and you can buy some EdenCrete cement additive for about ten bucks. It has carbon nanotubes in it. Not very sexy but perhaps the future looks better from a distance?
it will be a revolution of death and destruction because it is graphite poisoning that you will expose yourself to with all the applications they are talking about using it within, i have no problem with them using this stuff in batteries, but concrete is a stupid idea if someone skins their knee on the concrete and that person is likely to die due to graphite poisoning.
For tempering one's expectations of graphene's possibilities (re: space elevators, etc), compare the date of the first discovery of steel vs the first steel cable suspension bridge.
Before putting graphene in everything, we should do exhaustive studies on its impact on our health and the environment. We shouldn't repeat previous mistakes like lead, asbestos, teflon, ...
Mostly ideas, not research: We can also use natural fibres, like in hempcrete. They should even make it possible to use low-grade sand as aggregate. Fibres keep everything together, they can get very fine (think asbestos, but biodegradeble) and it's not like all concrete is moist and moldy all the time. Some applications propably wont work as well (foundations, waterproofing- if there is too much oxygen) Low- tech is a good solution for many things.
Your channel is just a gold mine for ideas to implement in any post-modern / scifi building/management games. everytime i watch a video: How cool would it be to add this X as a 2d mechanic in my game. (X being graphene here)
You can reduce the amount of clinker cement by just substitute it with flying ash or GGBS which is much cheaper and it already reduces the CO2 emissions of concrete. Also the increase in tension resistance of concrete of 27% is a bit of a nothing. Concrete tensile resistance is in a range of 1.5 to 3.0 MPa and that’s why it’s reinforced with steel, which tensile resistance is 200 to 500 MPa. So if you have to use graphene to make concrete stronger in tension from 3MPa to 3.5MPa is just a non-sense to me.
It's actually possible to make space elevator on the moon with a kevlar cable already, because of the lower gravity. Even Mars should be possible, but Earth is very dense for it size so it might be just beyond the edge of being possible. Venus is significantly smaller than Earth, although only slightly, and might be just small enough. The surface of Venus is way too hot anyway, so building a space elevator down to the upper atmosphere of Venus (where both the temperature and gravity is close to Earth's) just makes sense. NASA have actually suggested that floating/flying cities on Venus might be an better option than Mars for colonising. Since gravity is close to Earth's, bone mass loss should be avoided much easier. Venus has also a lot of heat energy that can be converted into electricity and an atmosphere that protects against radiation unlike Mars. In summary, space elevators are still viable, just maybe not for Earth.
There is one comment during this video about combining technologies. I think that is where a lot of innovations in the future should come from. The current way laboratories work and studies in general are performed, excludes cooporation by the way results are measured, published and put to market. So be brave, share and allow for more insecurity during the process. People are awesome!
Love your videos, and even if a certain technology doesn't pan out in the future, the promise of trial and error is exciting. I hope to be still around to see these technologies in use🙂
Graphene will be an important part of our future. I'm looking forward to seeing where we will be in just a few short years. Very exciting to say the least.
What I was always curious about graphene is if there are any research about health issues. Because it starts to seem more and more like a wonder material, and the last time that happened, humanity put asbestos everywhere. I know carbon is probably fine for our bodies, being one of life's basic blocks. I am just curious about the scale of graphene. For example, if it is ok to inhale such small particles.
@@paulferguson4930 well yeah. However, asbestos for example does a lot more damage apart from the fact that you inhale small particles. I mean even inhaling wood dust for a long time will damage your lungs. But wont cause cancer, i think. So what I wonder in the end, is if there is a toxicity danger with graphene.
@@michaelstrantzalis I've been trying to find out the same thing for CNTs but I have yet to see anything conclusive that CNTs or graphene are carcinogenic. When these materials are incorporated in things like plastics or rubber then there is virtually no risk to the consumer/user but handling these materials during the manufacturing process obviously needs to be done in a safe manner.
Hi Matt - enjoyed the video. Well researched and put together. In addition to the companies mentioned, it might be appropriate to look at NanoXplore, which is currently producing graphene at scale for about $10/kg, exfoliating graphite using a water based, carbon negative process. They are currently producing batteries through VoltaXplore and enhancing plastics and other materials for a variety of applications.
fun fact: graphene (LiPo) batteries are already a thing in drone racing/freestyle. they are a little bulkier and heavier than the average, but can deliver extreme output currents, have a great cycle life, and very little voltage sag under high loads
@@niclaskarlin i would think so, but i'm pretty sure they run on LiIon betteries. those have a much higher power density. high drain LiPos like that really only make sense in RC and drones, because the power/weight ratios there are beyond good and evil
Better idea would be "how concrete can solve our graphene problem" Because right now and within the next half or full decade, graphene realistically isn't going to be hit capacity where it can reach mass market because its production is extremely complex.
I’ve never been disappointed in graphene and nanotubes. These are very sophisticated materials. They require bleeding edge technology to make and utilize - technology we don’t really have yet. But that will come. Following the research, I’m seeing new methods being developed. It will take some years, but they’ll get there. There are also similar technologies based on boron. These are considered, in some ways to be superior to graphene. It may even be possible to combine the two, or anything else that may be discovered. We’re just at the very beginning of these new materials technologies.
I agree that CNTs are sophisticated materials but the technologies used to produce them have been around for quite a while. The fluidized bed reactors used to make CNTs by the CVD process definitely have challenges in scalability, but more recently, rotating kiln technology has been adopted that is operating today at the 50 TPA level and will be at the 1500 TPA level by next year.
As a retired swedish ww2 hero I want to add to the story: We should be thankful and grateful to Norway since most of the nature in the form of scenery, soil / stones and wildlife etc has drifted from the Norwegian hills and mountains to form what today is called sweden. Not many mention this fact - but we should do more to show gratitude toward Norway and the norwegian people. And we should also finally admit that the vikings originally came from Norway (and later spread to sweden and denmark).
@@1pcfred I would never buy a house that contains asbestos because I would not be in a position to do anything with its walls or components. Makes those houses built in the 20th century with asbestos worthless to me. Same would apply to graphene for me (if it is ever used) except i have scientific proof it is 100% harmless.
@@Will88ks asbestos is harmless too as long as you don't breathe it in. I've worked with the stuff plenty and it's never hurt me. Mostly it was a mob scam to create jobs. Asbestos remediation is a racket. They seal the jobsite off and you can't see what's going on inside there then they charge the client a fortune. They act like the stuff is the most deadly poison known to Man and idiots buy into it. We still commonly use other building materials that are a lot more harmful than asbestos is.
Will it become the new environmental hazard taking over for plastic with a large industrial use? As the concrete and materials infused with it breakdown and release the particles into the environment. It has been shown it can effect health with enough exposure.
Interestingly, I heard the US government was thinking of making a green energy initiative for construction companies who adopt this new technology for their concrete It will be called "Cash for Clinkers"
Speaking of hype Matt .... you're always referring to our carbon footprint and reducing it and I was just wondering if you ever considered that hydroponic farmers go to great lengths to add CO2 to the air mix inside their green houses? Because it significantly aids plant growth. adding a CO2 injection system to y our agricultural setup isn't cheap either so you can bet those farmers aren't doing it for no good reason. All we ever hear is that carbon is a greenhouse gas but it's so much more than that and besides, so is water vapor - it's a green house gas too, a more powerful one in fact. Should we make an attempt to reduce the amount of water across the planet? In any case ...it ought to be obvious to everyone that us going to great lengths to reduce the carbon dioxide in the air globally is detrimental to plant growth. Why would anyone in their right mind do such a thing when plants are the basis of all food chains on the planet? Do you still believe there was/is a pandemic? Have you seen piles of burning corpses in the street? If you haven't then there's been no pandemic and my point with this is that ... for the most part 'science' has gone along with the fairytale for the past two years. Given that this is the case how can we so sure that what we're being told about the climate is any more legitimate?
@@chaunceyfeatherstone6209 Yeah, agreed... 100% oof 😬 I'll just leave this here: “No, more CO₂ won't help us grow more food” ua-cam.com/video/qFA7Sui8w_g/v-deo.html
Plastic was hyped to change the world when it was invented. People were amazed and excited about this new super cheap but strong material. Years went by, then decades, and people lost interest and forgot about it. Almost overnight plastic did finally change the world - 40 years later. These things take time. I don't think it will take 40 years but a few decades is not out of the question. Graohene will revolutionize every single industry. It will change the world in ways we can't imagine right now.
Carbon nanotubes have been through the exact same cycle. A huge wave of hype and excitement crashes into the brick wall that is the journey from the lab to the shelf. I think it is telling that nobody even mentions CNTs in these comments about a video on graphene. The reality though is that CNTs are crossing the commercialization threshold now and prices have come down to the point where an expanding number of applications are economically feasible. This trend will accelerate now that production methods have been developed that are scalable into the hundreds and thousands of tons per year.
@@paulferguson4930 I also have found it a little strange that CNT are rarely even mentioned in graphene video's. Such a similar product and also amazing. I can't wait to see what can be done with them.
The problem with both graphene and carbon nanotubes, as I understand it, is producing large continuous spans of it. Tiny fragments can be made, and I think for carbon nanotubes we can reliably get a few feet at a time, but the dreams of things like space elevators rely on hundreds of miles of continuous span. That's still in the future, but the applications being explored for the small amounts we can make today is exciting.
I think this is just one of those technologies that just plain takes a while to develop. We're used to having problems take a couple years to solve but things like graphene and fusion take a lot longer. If we live long enough, I have no doubt we'll find technological problems that take centuries or millennia to solve.
Graphene's slow development has been overwhelming but the belief in the tech is still there. The use of CO to create it seems more realistic and cost effective as many industrial plants have CO as a waste product. If piped and captured it could be a win win for both industrial emissions and graphene development
A while ago Robert Murray Smith went into a bit of detail about how he was testing making graphene-coated sand for use in concrete. He mentioned that quartz sand is catalytic to the process of producing graphite. It looks like there's a few papers on graphene-coating sand, but all Robert was doing was using a kiln and a bit of sugar as a source of the carbon.
If graphene doesn't oxidize and can be made cheaply it would an excellent replacement for steel rebar, which rusts and cracks when used in concrete structures. And if that added strength could reduce weight that would be a plus.
There is a lot of literature out there about this. Also, places like the Center for Advanced Construction Materials at the University of Texas at Austin are doing a lot of work with CNTs in cement right now.
Being a member of a maintenance team, the one thing that worries me about graphene at scale is that all of this may be true, but it also reminds me of the "magic mineral" - asbestos. It really does do everything everyone says, it's great, and deadly. When I hear these miracle materials, I'm always wondering "what health issues are going to crop up in twenty years due to a lack of a proper understanding and adequate funding for maintaining graphene materials?"
Concrete with graphene to make it rigid and long lasting without rust issues is fantastic. I wish I know a place where you can purchase graphene based fittings to install or mix into your concrete...
I add graphene to all my construction coatings that are not water based. My walls and ceiling now dissipate heat, the wood stove no longer rusts, and an epoxy counter can withstand 300 degrees C.
Switching to geopolymer and alkali activated pozzolans means the benefits construed for expensive graphene aggregates can be got from cheap biochar, while sequestering carbon taken from the air by trees.
Isaac Arthur's upward bound series on youtube is a really interesting catalog of ways to get into space at industrial scale without necessarily needing space elevators or graphene supermaterials
The Aussie firm claim on their website they first wanted to revolutionize concrete, making it 4 x stronger, lasting 10,000 years. They claim their product was not wanted by the makers of Portland Cement. I wrote them about it but they didn't answer.
graphene piezo transducer in tires of EV suggests unlimited power with low thremal issues and could be added to numerous types of items like shoes and almost anything that could transmit energy back to the grid and or like with shoes could mean that they would last longer and beable to charge your phone after all day of walking and charging up then go into a dock and that dock could power your phone charger
Matt , I am still stuck on graphene.. and I have done some looking around to see if graphene itself responds to being put in an induction coil.. graphene has a heat transfer of around 3000 WM and diamonds known as in the past to be one of the best thermal conductor is at about 1000 WM. Just the thermal transfer is incredible . We use graphene for sink property for releasing heat. Yet I wonder if he could be best used to efficient to actually heat… such as melting ice … thank you Maybe you know this
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If you liked this video, check out "Why This Fusion Tech May Be a Geothermal Energy Breakthrough" - ua-cam.com/video/g8sjdOjNxIE/v-deo.html
I already use Graphene coatings on the cars we detail, and it does seem to be a step forward in spray coatings , being more durable than the previous spray Ceramic coatings….👍🇮🇲
most of graphene is being injected in people via vacc as an adjuvant.
Will concrete embedded with graphene eliminate the need for rebar?
@@Cat-qw4ir I don’t think so, it still need the torsional strength of the rebar, but it does reduce the amount required, plus it has corrosion resistance 👍
But...didn't you just tell us Borophene has already made graphene old and busted?
My concern about graphene is its long term impact on the environment. We know, for instance, that precautions must be taken when handling graphene to prevent it becoming airborne and being inhaled. In sheet form, it is relatively stable and inert, but when we embed nanomaterials in products that wear, like the soles of footwear, vehicle tires, or concrete, we have to assume it is going to enter the environment on a very small scale during their slow breakdown.
According to the European Commission adopted 2011 Recommendation on Nanomaterials: Fullerenes, graphene flakes and single wall carbon nanotubes with one or more external dimensions below 1nm should be considered as nanomaterials.
We all know what a nightmarish threat earlier nanomaterials like asbestos, finely powdered silicates, and even today with micro plastic particles were all discovered to pose long after their adoption in industrial and consumer products. In addition to simple inhalation risks which are relatively low in the outdoors, researchers said that (as with asbestos and coal dust, and other smooth, continuous, biopersistent particles) graphene can enter the body and may have the ability to instigate tumour growth.
There is minimal reliable environmental data on graphene regarding its bioaccumulation or mobility in environmental media.
The way I see it, we need to do our due diligence researching and vetting these materials for long term environmental and human health impacts before we turn to them as a panacea for our carbon emission problems.
Excellent point. The main uses of graphene nano-particles that interest me are in electronics where they hopefully won't escape into the environment though some precautions should certainly be taken since people do throw away electronics rather than recycle them (I've actually got a decent amount that I want to recycle but next to no options to actually do so, especially if I want to get something in return for the precious metals inside). Concrete is an interesting use but as you said we need to make sure the nano-particles won't cause any problems down the road. I've read about work on graphene sheets which could enable the creation of some really strong materials, not sure how likely it is for small pieces to break off.
Great point. Thanks for your comment, I have been on the graphene train since I first heard about it about 6 years ago. You have given me reason to pause and think.
Thank-you for confirming... I thought I read a while ago that, while graphene is AMAZING.... there's concerns that graphene is the new asbestos.
@Richard Cranium Not particularly. Please don't politicize this.
@@patusoro4781 *could be* the new asbestos. Could be. We don't know that it is but we don't know that it isn't.
When you describe the benefits of graphene in concrete it really sounds very similar to the benefits of mixing in asbestos. Given the tiny particle sizes I hope someone stops to do a cost benefit analysis on potential health impacts and the impact of future abatement strategies and costs before this gets widely deployed. I feel like industry would love to spread millions and millions of tons of this stuff around before safety regulators catch on. Carbon nanotubes have the same problem I see people playing with it like the ultra black paints which are super cool but fragile and I saw a study comparing the inhalation risk in rats of nanotubes vs asbestos and it was at least as bad but likely worse. It makes intuitive sense that nanoscale indestructible fibers would not be good for our lungs.
Thanks, I'm terrified now.
I came to express my same concern. I'm excited about the applications, but worried it'll be the next big carcinogen.
Carbon graphite has been around a very long time, it proved much safer than lead pencils and has been used as a lubricant.
Isolating one layer by pulling graphite apart is not creating a new chemical and calling them indestructible is silly when the toughest form of carbon, diamond is burnt at a relatively low temperature.
Carbon chains and rings are common organic chemistry
Graphene production at scale is subject to REACH regulations, just like any other chemical, and this includes toxicology tests which so far have indicated it is safe.
@@RobBCactive Thank you for your replay. I'm sorry that in my comment I was not as clear as I could have been since I switched subjects from graphene to C nanotubes. "Indestructible" was somewhat of a rhetorical flourish when I should more accurately have said "bioaccumulative". Of course the material can be destroyed industrially, but one of its desirable industrial properties is that it is highly insoluble in water, and when you process it you can end up with very small particles that your organs can't filter out and can get into your bloodstream. So if you release a lot of this into the environment it seems likely to create problems. Like PFAs/PFOAs, they aren't going to hurt you immediately probably even with high exposures, but it sticks around and eventually causes problems. It may be difficult to detect contamination and filtration may not be effective for the smaller particles that are the ones we need to be concerned about. Here is one study that concluded there is potentially some Graphene bioaccumulation possible: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.7b04339
REACH isn't going to necessarily help American consumers or people in Asian countries where it's being manufactured.
REACH isn't done studying the material. They show that it doesn't exhibit acute toxicity but they do classify it as having long lasting negative effects on aquatic life because it sticks around. PFAs and silicates don't have acute toxicity either so I don't think we should let down our guard based on that. echa.europa.eu/substance-information/-/substanceinfo/100.227.924
I do not think that we should abandon the use of Graphene as it has lots of exciting potential but I am saying that we need to proceed with caution and maybe limit the applications so that we can control the pollution or recycle the material properly. And ensure that production waste streams are controlled. For example, not deploying it to residential construction where homeowners will eventually dispose of it improperly. After all there are still some industrial applications of asbestos that we have not been able to eliminate because of its superior properties...that doesn't mean it should be widely deployed the way that it was in the 60's.
Graphene in my mind has moved from disappointing Back to exciting me , maybe because I dropped my expectations from when I first heard of it. I think now we have the right ideas for it, let graphene improve do all the little things that it can improve and as it’s use scales up it will start to do everything we thought it could . We all wanted the grand slams but to get there we need a few singles to load the bases! Another great posting Matt
Some things have failed because they can't be scaled up.
That's a perfect analogy, re: having to load the bases before the grand slam
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket 1965 actually, but neither of these years matter because lithium didn't actually get implemented until the early 1990s which is when we achieved a power density level that was acceptable for the masses. Sony and Asahi Kasei released the first commercial lithium-ion battery in 1991. Before that it was just us playing around with materials and improving on the original design but even then we still looked at NiCad/NiMH as the solution because it did the job and it was much cheaper.. ( improvements like the implementation of a graphite anode, which replaced a soft carbon one and upped density levels, but wasn't feasible to make until the early 90s). wasn't really even until the early 2000s that we actually see them in normal consumer things like the original iPod in 2002 due to cost. Lion powered tools and such didn't see the light of day until the mid to late 2000s.(2005 Home Depot and Harbor Freight still pushed Nicad/NiMH tools for example) Energizer did develop lithium AA cells in 1991....but we wouldn't see those become popular until about 10 years later.
With basically any new material coming from the lab the hype is grand. It needs to be funded and people following this type of news generally love to speculate and dream of the future. What's possible isn't always feasible, especially where pragmatism is involved.
@@Bryan-Hensley yet
This is an exciting area of research and application. I actually recently became friends with someone who moved to our small town and works for a company developing graphene additive based concrete solutions utilizing low grade graphene. They've determined that the graphene dramatically decreases drying/setting time, increases strength and durability all the while reducing production costs and environmental impact. It seems very promising and is a cool new(ish) area of material research.
Is the company called oco?
@@Ryanrulesok I'll be honest, I don't recall the company. I was too interested in what they are doing to remember the company's name which was mentioned at the beginning of our first conversation.
"graphene dramatically decreases drying/setting time, increases strength and durability all the while reducing production costs and environmental impact."
WOW!!!! That must be a multi trillion dollar company now .....
@@fewwiggle probably would be, except, as per the whole point t of this video, graphene is still very hard to produce, much less produce at a reliable, scalable level that could be commercialized. Of course, having some stock in the right companies, when graphite does become scalably produced … might be a good thing.
For me, graphene was never unexciting. The issue with graphene is mostly that journalists and others basically imagined that it could be made, and integrated into our society in an extremely unrealistic timeframe. Heck even if you had the technology just the time required to build a factory would've fallen short on their unrealistic projections, thus people got convinced that it was all hype and no substance.
Conversely my takeaway has mostly been that it WILL be amazing, but that we need to scale production first, something which it looks like is genuinely happening now.
No it still looks like an overpriced hypefest shilled by people like matt. So many gullible children out there.
Remember, it’s only been a single human lifespan since any living thing on this planet has even seen the far side of the moon. Some people have an odd view of patience.
The CO deposition method is interesting. I wonder how they go about separating from the copper substrate. One note is the supposed elimination of explosive gasses is inaccurate. CO is a highly flammable and explosive gas. Of course you'll be long dead from poisoning before it reaches the lower explosive limit in a room.
Big fan please reply 🥵
Are you suggesting gasses that have a much higher binding affinity to haemoglobin than CO2 and O2 are poisonous...
This really take my breath away ;)
I have a company around the corner where I live where they convert co2 into a carbon substrate that they mix into concrete to replace aggregate
@@Ryanrulesok This sounds like a very interesting process. Do you have any more details?
Honestly didn’t even know CO was flammable much less explosive. Now that I really think about it CO2 is almost the weirder one, just a bunch of carbon and oxygen and it puts OUT fires weird.. lol
8:43 Something not mentioned is that stronger concrete means less concrete is needed overall, this reduces the overall CO2 output per structure. Also means that buildings can have smaller support elements which means structures can have more usable space.
Tons of upsides indeed! Just need that graphene to lower in price 100 fold (or more) and I'm sure we will see it everywhere.
The Jevons paradox states that if less something is needed, the falling cost only increases the demand and the efficiency gains are negated. People would use cement for things they now use cheaper materials (like wood) and the overall carbon effect might be close to zero or even negative
Yeah, or we stop using concrete and use far mor healthy and environmentally friendly materials. Also at 100$ a gramm... I don't see it happening in the next ten to twenty years, at least not for spaces where people actually live in (interesting though for bridges, reactors, safe houeses, bunkers, etc.)
@@tobiash_k3229 There's no alternative to concrete.
That would be nice. Concrete in residential construction is often so much larger than all the other components in a vertical structure that designers, architects and carpenters are constantly compensating in countless compromises to make final layers line up.
I've been working with First Graphene products for 18mth and developing a Graphene enhanced shotcrete which has proved to have not just good strength, but also very good workability properties. Thanks for making this video and sharing how Graphene is making great progress as a new and exciting material.
Shotcrete is the spray on concrete like substance that is lighter and faster drying, and often thinner (layered, maybe?) right? I remember working with someone who was making chicken-wire shaped forms and using what I think was called shotcrete to bring structure and substance to them. Or was it the injected air that made it a much more insulating material? Too many contradictory claims on the internet to find actual, trustworthy information, and here you pop up in my feed as an expert! Thank you in advance.
From what you presented here, graphene in concrete is one of the first uses that not only makes sense but can be manufactured at scale. If concrete can be made more environmentally friendly, robust, durable, and lighter, it will bring significant benefits to builders everywhere. It will probably take years to develop practical applications for the stuff that remains in the lab. Nevertheless, labs worldwide continue to research, and eventually, a breakthrough will happen that will fulfill the promise of this fantastic material. I appreciate your keeping us current with all that is happening in this space.
It's only make the concrete stronger and to some degree more durable but actually less environmental friendly. Hovewer, in some cases due to the increased strenght it can reduce the needed thickness of structures resulting in lighter and more environmental friendly structures due to less material used. This is not viable for all types of structures due to differ reasons and in some cases it's worth it and others not. In some cases there already are additives that gives the same result but cheaper. So it's not a total revolutionary material in the building sector but another possible solution to be used in the right situations.
At $100/gram I doubt it will get used
@@eris1427 i doubt it really has any of these alleged effects. i smell a scam.
@@Withnail1969 It does have the alleged effect and is already being used where it's beneficial and the extra cost can be accepted. The cost of graphene in sufficient amounts is high and it's therefore rarely used. We do have alot of studies on graphene reinforced concrete with good results and also have a good general understanding of how nano and micro reinforced concrete behave from other reinforcment materials. For example the increased fire protection comes from the reinforcement greatly reduces spalliation of the protective concrete layer when exposed to high heats (fire). The protective layer can therefore be reduced and the protection is more controllable. Today this fire protection is mainly done in large tunnels with polypropylene fibers but the same effect have been seen with graphene which is an interesting alternative due to the increased strength. Which would make the reinforcement have multiple purposes. But due to the price it's still far from a common solution in large projects and much further from being used in normal buildings.
It needs to reduce its price from $100/g to $0.1/g to be attractive for most concrete uses. Clinker has a ton price of $48/ton, and reducing the needed clinker by 20% by adding 0.01% graphene at current prices increases the per ton price to $1038/ton. Except in extreme niche cases, it is basically unusable unless the price drops drastically.
I’m gratified to see that graphene is making its way into commercial products at this time. And I’m excited for the possibilities that it holds for our near future, and beyond.
Icould be mistaken, but didn't they put graphene in vaccine?
It makes sense that graphene is so great, as hexagons are the bestagons.
Indeed. Just to think that a mere 10 years ago it was still majorly on a lab basis, to now being decently commercialized. Commercialization is always the biggest hurdle with new promising technologies, and serves as the proof of concept that graphene is here to not just stay, but to evolve even further in the next decade. The vast majority of development of a new technology happens AFTER it becomes commercially viable. And that's where we are at now.
Right, but I'd like to know more about possible toxicity. It's incredibly light and strong, so what happens if there are shards of this stuff flying around. We have nanoparticles of plastic in the ecosystem, including found even in people's blood, so what happens when we get similar bits of graphene floating around. What happens if you breath that stuff, for instance?
@@cv990a4 can it be worse than DuPont dumpy the Teflon shit straight into rivers? To think 3M even warned DuPont of the necessity of not releasing any of it. Now we all have scotch guard in every cell of our bodies. What’s to worry about a little graphene in the mix? Every year we keep burning fossil fuels will just mean another thousand years of hell on earth!
An interesting primer for the uninitiated but it’s a shame Versarien hasn’t registered on your Graphene Radar (even though you actually used some footage of a concrete pour using their graphene!). Not only is their graphene being commercially used in pours regularly now but their own proprietary mix ‘Cementene’ is about to revolutionise 3D printing of buildings and is set to be used in the HS2 high speed rail system in the UK. Oh, and did I mention that they are also already producing large sheet, defect free CVD sheets in collaboration with their partners Graphene Lab in South Korea? Throw in a new range of Graphene-wear clothing for Umbro and SuperDry, tires specially formulated for higher torque EVs with Enso, amongst other projects and you can start to see they are a name to watch…
_They_ are a name to watch? _They?_ 🤔
If you work for the company you should really be using the word "we". Your post reeks of paid-for advertising written by committee and 'liked' by in-house supporters.
@@nagualdesign I don’t work for the company so the correct word is ‘they’.
@@moodtherapist if you don't work for them why don't you mention any drawbacks of their products?
@@ooooneeee he's just saying some positive benefits of graphene that are already being produced and realized from a commercial standpoint. he's saying take a look at this company, not "here is a paragraph of every pro/con aspect of my post".
@@eulldog no real person talks like this. It’s ok if he works for the company or is a big fan but boilerplate marketing is easy to spot
For years (decades) laser was considered a brilliant solution for which noone knew the problem. Today society is totally dependent on the lasers embedded in most of our electronics and communications. Sometimes a new technology needs a few improvements before widespread adoption is possible. For lasers, a key development was the semi-conductor laser. For graphene, it may be a cheap, realiable, consistently high-quality production method.
Oh is that all?
Your analogy of the laser doesn't apply here. We all know the problems that graphene would be a brilliant solution to. No one is waiting for another technology to come along to make graphene an amazing product. Cheap, reliable, consistently high-quality production methods are what _everything_ needs, not just graphene.
Lasers are NOT in "most of our electronics" not even CLOSE
"From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Matthew 4:17
"But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." Matthew 5:39•
@@followerofjesuschrist. amen
I suspect that graphene will be one of those products that becomes more and more useful in more and more products. However the expectations set by the over-hyping will lead many people to always feel that it has fallen short of expectations never mind the fact that it might end up making huge differences where it finds a foothold. It will always feel too little too late.
I think the hype is merely at the consumer level. It appears industries are already using it in some forms more commonly than we expected and expanding into other industries and usages at a pace that can sustain the innovation, like upgrading the machinery, etc without significant sticker shock. I think the industries that benefit from it themselves will help innovate application methods as well making it more accessible for us.
Rice Labs also has an incredible graphene production method called flash joule heating, that not only produces graphene from any plastic materials but also elemental hydrogen and oxygen. They've already tested the method with Ford motors and created a close to perfectly circular recycling process
As I understood it, the flash processing was to be out of the lab and ramping commercial production by late last summer. I haven’t watched the majority of the video yet, but I’ll be very surprised to see the Rice University graphene production method mentioned. If it is, I’ll have to edit my comment.
Dr. James Tour. Ftw
For CO2 savings from improvements in concrete, you missed an opportunity to explain how improvements in compression and tensile strength drastically reduces the amount of concrete needed for a given project. If you need less because it’s stronger, then you also need less because the project weighs less. It’s a virtuous cycle. It would be interesting to see it quantified by a structural engineer.
also the amount of steel rebar should reduce if the material itself is stronger, so thats also a CO2 win
In an age of both wonder and instant gratification, we often overlook some simple facts that much older generations understood: progress actually takes time. The fact that you are talking about a two year time frame from the first video about graphene's potential, to actual products using graphene is mind boggling, not disappointing. Graphene has not been over hyped, all of the potential applications are still potential applications, what has happened is over expectations of ease of development. A few years ago, it wasn't even known how to make commercial quantities of graphene. Now it's sold in bulk. Some of the other problems will be solved soon also because it is so potentially profitable and life altering for humanity.
Collectively we heard the internal combustion engine was invented and went straight to expecting a Ferrari. Then we got annoyed we haven't got it yet, while people working with it started to put together a Model T. When its in the market proper we'll have forgotten the drama completely while marvelling we don't have to walk everywhere. Business and journalism are obsessed with "Moon shot" thinking where the first thing we should focus on is always, always, always MVP - Minimum Viable Product. Its nice to know where we're going but we have to first pay attention to how we're going to get there.
Matt, have you heard of anyone doping aluminum with graphene? Aluminum is 60% as conductive as copper and so if aluminum could become as conductive as copper it would massively alter the market.
Why would you do this over using graphene only or doing the same thing with copper instead?
@@xBox360BENUTZER that depends on how aluminium-graphene composite competes with the price of copper wire.
@@xBox360BENUTZER Copper is already conducive enough and aluminum needs the help to be as conductive. Aluminum is lighter and cheaper than copper. Is graphene wire available in the market? If so, are they are inexpensive as copper per pound?
@@linyenchin6773unknown Lin? TBD
@@billkemp9315 Real graphene products like graphene wire are not available. Only scam products like this concrete.
Are Graphene micro flecks safe? At the micron size with a nanomaterial seems like breathing it in might be a bad idea. The research on its toxicity seems mixed but there doesn't appear to be a clear its non-toxic consensus yet. By sticking graphene into everything are we risking starting an asbestos 2.0 era of toxic concrete, coatings, insulation, paints, ...
This is my concern.. you stated it well.
Finding simple and ubiquitous uses (like better concrete) will drive the incentive to ramp production and reduce costs. Looking forward to having a graphene tent over my home to keep hail from destroying it.
I am surprised you didn't mention the "Flash Graphene" process developed by Rice University that produces high quality graphene from waste material cheaply. This has the potential to produce graphene and solve much of our waste problems at the same time, without the chemicals usually required for many existing production methods.
I was looking to see if someone mentioned this, I figured if I had read about it, surely he had. It sounded too good to be true but certainly plausible.
I was looking for that on this video to
I never thought graphene wasn't living up to its potential. I trust think it's taking a while.
A relatively unexplored subject is the relationship between graphene, carbon nanotubes, and bamboo charcoal. Also, well not on the nanoscale, Bamboo fiber can also be used to drastically reinforced concrete, and minimize cracking.
Bamboo reinforcement is and has been used in concrete commonly in places like Cambodia. I believe bamboo is incorporated into the concrete because it is cheaper than metal reinforcement and was readily available locally. It was used in places like parking lots. In these locations I would suggest that the locals are very well aware of the properties of using bamboo in concrete. Concrete mixes are adjusted based on costs and availability of various materials.
In the U.S. it's still virtually unknown even though the U.S. military has stated that it wants split bamboo to be used in place of rebar in the construction of future ocean side bases. Also, the use of chipped/shredded bamboo mulch in concrete hasn't received much publicity.
One of the first concerns that I saw when graphene came on the scene were medical studies of disease and cancer from inhaling nanoparticles. Which, fair. I don't know if it is or is not proven either way by this time? But regardless, I do know that I would be a lot more likely to trust graphene used in *internal* designs. Whereas use of graphene in concrete? A material we know breaks down over time? Even if that breakdown is an even longer time than the same product without graphene, that's still concerning. Whatever we do with this wonder material, I sincerely hope that we are not repeating the asbestos as a building material crisis for a future generation.
Graphene Bars…make your lungs strong.
I like it, but. If this gets scaled up to industrial dimensions, what will happen with thousands of tons of little brittles of graphene released, ending up in landfills, as dust in the air and soil, as flimsy very membranous particles in rivers and oceans? What happens if a microbe eats it? It is not a material that ever existed in any significant quantities in nature, and throughout the entire evolution the biosphere has never before encountered this stuff. What could possibly go wrong? Have you thought about this? Any one?
This maybe a dump question, but on that scale what is the additional fear between this in the dump and pencil production waste in the dump?
Revolutionary materials are never breakthroughs in and of themselves. Graphene, steel, plastic and other wonder materials only enable huge breakthroughs in manufacturing and materials science and through those breakthroughs create improvements. Knowing a material can exist/ can be made and having large enough quantities of it to do something useful are two very different things.
Yes, sufficient quantities at an economically feasible price point.
Also, if lowering C02 emissions is the goal, we always need to factor in the C02 produced in getting to that goal, which seems to be a question almost no one asks. It's part of why "green" energy solutions are rarely green. Electric cars have 0 emissions but creating them and their batteries creates as many problems as it solves. Graphene is no different. If all we care about is C02 emissions, we need to start doing ALL the math.
Fiberglass strands in concrete already solve all these strength, cracking, and rusting issues.
Is Graphene going to become the next "Forever Chemical"? I hope not, it sounds awesome.
@@rogerstarkey5390 ok and?
I have a feeling the answer is yes.
Graphene is toxic and may be carcinogenic. However it does seem to degrade more easily than for instance PFOS. It is important to take the health and enronmental effects into consideration when producing and using graphene.
@@tombh74 Thanks for the ino friend.
@@tombh74 graphene/graphite/carbon is neither toxic nor carcinogenic. if it was, life wouldn't exist as we know it.
I was born only 47 years ago. In that time we have seen a bunch of exponential improvements in a wide range of things. This looks like another one. It's easy to forget how unprecedented it is historically to witness that amount of change in one life time. And I hope to live another few decades. My feeling is that things are happening faster, not slower.
This graphene thing is evolving extremely rapidly. If anything, people seem a bit spoiled with their need for instant gratification and dismissal for anything that fails to yield results during their short attention spans. The ironic thing with graphene is that a lot of things happened while these people were distracted by other things and they are still peddling the same arguments as a few years ago, which are simply no longer valid.
It unfortunate that they announce all these exciting applications before they figure out how to make the stuff at scale.
Matt, it's not just hype. The Clinker reduction can certainly help the Carbon footprints of Concrete manufacturers. It does sure feel a long way off though due to scaling issues and high up front nonrecurring costs for tooling and other expenses.
It is much closer than you think. In the case of First Graphene, it's an admixture at the clinker stage and no retooling is required. Check out recent interviews with CEO, Mike Bell on UA-cam. This company is a mile ahead of the competition in this space.
They may also want to checkout the company's website
And it is horribly expensive as an additive to cement. $100/g of graphene equals $100 million per ton of graphene. Even if you only need 0.01% to reduce clinker by 20%, that still increases the cost from $48/ton clinker to $1038/ton of mixed clinker and graphene.
Would graphene sheets be good for solar sails, drum skins, tarps, tents, non-stick pots, rain collectors, hammocks, parachutes, body armor, boat paint, skating rinks, road surfacing, pond liners, anti-fouling and anti-rust coatings?
I think the hype around graphine was correctly placed, just a little early. Graphine has a huge potencial to influence engineering of products with its strength, and conductivity being key factors.
The only think limiting the use of graphine currently is not technical, but ecomonic. Its producing it in such volumes that the cost is justified for the benefit.
think of the grid cables example. graphine will only really be used in grid cables if the cost per mile of cable, is less than savings from the per mile efficiency difference with copper cable. over the lifespan of the cable.
if a graphine cable costs double the amount. but only reduces transmission losses by 1/4 then its not going to be worth the cost. However if the graphine cable costs 1/4 more but saves >1/4 of the transmission losses, then everyone will start using it.
OR if it costs 1/4 more. however has the same transmission losses but lasts twice as long before needing replacing. or any combination. so long as the economics make sense it will have customers. but whilst its expensive, very few are going to utilise the material.
This is a critical consideration. The copper price right now is about $9,322/metric tonne. That comes out to just under $0.01/gram. Compare that to what Matt said in the video, that graphene prices have come down to $100/gram. If it requires the same amount of material to carry the same amount of power, then there is a real barrier to adoption here. If graphene is much more efficient, then the playing field will tilt more in the direction of level, but it will have to be hugely more efficient to get to level.
I work at an auto parts store and we have begun carrying wash and wax products with graphene in it. Adam's and Turtle Wax are just a couple of brands that now include it.
Every conversation about graphene for over decade begins with "Graphene could...." . Now I just watch these graphene videos and lol. I'll see you again in 10 years in another video on this exact same subject.
Followed by another “fusion breakthrough!” video.
The only bottleneck is cost and industrial scale production 🤦♂️
I think the main reason graphene was/is seen as disappointing is because of a misunderstanding of how long it will take for it to come to market, and how impatient the internet has made us. We were only first able to isolate it and test its properties in 2004, getting it to market in some way less than 20 years later is extremely quick. I think a relatively high amount of the promises that media told us about graphene are eventually going to come to market, especially given how high the hype was in the 2010s.
I knew I’d see a video about this soon. Been waiting on an update on graphene. It’s world-changing. Technology needs countless studies to unveil the proven science. It’ll be here soon
As an engineer, it makes me tired that anything new has to be used in critical systems straight away.
Just use it in none-critical functions first, test it long term and then use it in critical functions.
That would require some gov money, but this is why we should vote for politicians that are engineers. This will speed up the development.
Dr. James Tour and his team at Rice University have cracked the code on manufacturing graphene with the *"Flash joule heating"* process. Electrically zapping anything carbon-based into graphene.
FR.
He also has pioneered 100 new uses
Imagine how many times graphene has been unknowingly isolated by random people with tape and pencils before at was truly discovered.
I have made graphene coins before it was cool.
all those people deserve nobel prices too lol
Nah, it takes more than just putting tape on pencil to get graphene. Dozens of cycles until you isolate single layers, I doubt a lot of people have had the patience to do that without reason...
@@AstroBax Never underestimate student boredom as a reason!
I think it's funny how the tape on the pencil drawing fun that most of us did in school to entertain ourselves became a scientific revolution.
I'm just wondering whether the long term biological effect of concrete dust containing graphene was thoroughly researched. I don't want another asbestos fiasco.
That's a very good point. I know breathing cement dust isn't good for you. When you add graphene particles I don't know what would happen. Every positive has negatives. I wonder what this one will have.
Its basically charcoal dust, compared to the limestone dust it’s basically not worth mentioning.
What are you even talking about?
Asbestos? Time to do some reading on graphene. Graphene isn’t cancer-causing like asbestos is. Also people new asbestos made people sick, but they used it anyways. If graphite was dangerous, we wouldn’t use it in everything from pencils to lubricants.
Also plain concrete dust is far more dangerous and cancer-causing then graphene could ever be.
@@ericmcquisten Graphite is not the same a graphene. And while people used asbestos since the stone age, the dangers to people became more well known only after they started to use it industrially and made more research on it so it makes sense to make research on something BEFORE starting to use it wide scale in the industry.
And how would you even know whether concrete dust is more dangerous than graphene if it isn't/wasn't researched? 🤔
04? My physical science teacher taught me about it in high school 1987. We were doing graphite pencil on paper and then looking through a microscope at the lattice work. He said back then that if you learned how to harness it and produce it cheaply that you would make a fortune. Rest in peace Mr A
I'm worried graphene pollution is going to be worse than plastic and asbestos combined. It's insanely hard to filter and dangerous for the human body when ingested. I'd love to see your thoughts on this.
There is no evidence that graphene is harmful when ingested. It's inert. The body is basically carbon. I don't know about inhalation risk. Many dusts are dangerous. It is possible to deal with the risk.
@@peterinns5136 I've been reading about this since people were initially messing with graphene, there is a ton of information about it.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6448540/#:~:text=The%20antibacterial%20activity%20of%20graphene,110%20or%20%2Dindependent%20oxidative%20stress.&text=Some%20authors%20report%20that%20the,lethal%20damage%20to%20cellular%20integrity.
It looks like at this point in time all the puzzle pieces click together and all the problems from the different disciplines are solving each others quandaries
What a great channel ! I’m an analyst for a VC fund in the clean tech sector. We invested in a graphene company. So far, pretty complicated to get it out into the market
There is alot of scamming going on in that sector to scam VC funds from money. You are aware for example about Theranos? :)
That money is gone, you got scammed. Don't give them any more.
*Concrete is porous, while graphene is impermeable. Putting graphene in concrete could not only make it less brittle, but could result in concrete foundations that are resistant to water infiltration in wetter soil environments.*
Graphene doesn't live in a vacuum. Whenever you propose to actually use it for something it is surrounded by other stuff. The electronic properties of graphene on silicon are not the same as the properties of graphene in a vacuum. As soon as you mix it with something else you have to check what the properties of the combined system are.
I've seen the graphene battery bank and I've wanted one ever since but it's still not available in my country and the one time it was it went out of stock almost immediately, the thing is they still have to scale up production of whatever they use it on in a proper way to actually make it viable
Thank you for another great video!
Graphene seems like it has a bright future as a "secret" ingredient in many different products, making them them more efficient in different ways. But someone still has to come up with a better way of mass producing it. Coming down in price by two orders of magnitude in 12 years is an impressive achievement, but if graphene is going to become a major part of the economy they still need to knock another zero off. Or two.
This is still a technology that is super young. Seems to be moving into realization rather rapidly. People today are desperate for new tech because of the straits we are in ,thus everything gets over hyped. Graphene will be commonplace in a decade.
If you yell Graphene loud enough, Ian Crossland busts through the wall like the Kool aide man.
I'm imagining all the medical applications as well for graphene. There's literally applications for it in pretty much every single industry in some way shape or form.
It would be great to see it reduce the emissions of concrete production for sure. Anything we can do to help keep us to the 1.5 degrees is great.
With emissions now up to 40 gigaton say year, we burn through the 2C budget in 2026. There's no way Humanity does not burn through the 3C budget sometime between 2050 and 2060.
I like this channel and the presentation of new, upcoming technologies, but more than anything it reminds me of my childhood in the 1980s where I used to love reading "Popular Mechanics" (probably still exists? I haven't looked lately) where all these future technologies were laid out to happen in the 1990s or 2000s. I'm sure some of them have come true along the way, but mostly it seemed like hype and just made for fun reading back in the day.
Go to your local Lowe's and you can buy some EdenCrete cement additive for about ten bucks. It has carbon nanotubes in it. Not very sexy but perhaps the future looks better from a distance?
So far, graphene is the hydrogen vehicle of materials. Hopefully it meets it's original hype at some point in the future.
it will be a revolution of death and destruction because it is graphite poisoning that you will expose yourself to with all the applications they are talking about using it within, i have no problem with them using this stuff in batteries, but concrete is a stupid idea if someone skins their knee on the concrete and that person is likely to die due to graphite poisoning.
@@rogerstarkey5390 People said the same thing about CNTs (forever in the future). They're still saying it actually.
For tempering one's expectations of graphene's possibilities (re: space elevators, etc), compare the date of the first discovery of steel vs the first steel cable suspension bridge.
Before putting graphene in everything, we should do exhaustive studies on its impact on our health and the environment.
We shouldn't repeat previous mistakes like lead, asbestos, teflon, ...
Mostly ideas, not research:
We can also use natural fibres, like in hempcrete. They should even make it possible to use low-grade sand as aggregate.
Fibres keep everything together, they can get very fine (think asbestos, but biodegradeble) and it's not like all concrete is moist and moldy all the time. Some applications propably wont work as well (foundations, waterproofing- if there is too much oxygen)
Low- tech is a good solution for many things.
Your channel is just a gold mine for ideas to implement in any post-modern / scifi building/management games.
everytime i watch a video: How cool would it be to add this X as a 2d mechanic in my game. (X being graphene here)
You can reduce the amount of clinker cement by just substitute it with flying ash or GGBS which is much cheaper and it already reduces the CO2 emissions of concrete.
Also the increase in tension resistance of concrete of 27% is a bit of a nothing. Concrete tensile resistance is in a range of 1.5 to 3.0 MPa and that’s why it’s reinforced with steel, which tensile resistance is 200 to 500 MPa. So if you have to use graphene to make concrete stronger in tension from 3MPa to 3.5MPa is just a non-sense to me.
It's actually possible to make space elevator on the moon with a kevlar cable already, because of the lower gravity. Even Mars should be possible, but Earth is very dense for it size so it might be just beyond the edge of being possible.
Venus is significantly smaller than Earth, although only slightly, and might be just small enough. The surface of Venus is way too hot anyway, so building a space elevator down to the upper atmosphere of Venus (where both the temperature and gravity is close to Earth's) just makes sense.
NASA have actually suggested that floating/flying cities on Venus might be an better option than Mars for colonising. Since gravity is close to Earth's, bone mass loss should be avoided much easier. Venus has also a lot of heat energy that can be converted into electricity and an atmosphere that protects against radiation unlike Mars.
In summary, space elevators are still viable, just maybe not for Earth.
It's nice to see graphene produced at any sort of scale above a handful a day, lol. Hope this continues to improve rapidly.
Be careful with messing up with concrete. We are still paying the results of aluminosis in many 20th century buildings.
There is one comment during this video about combining technologies. I think that is where a lot of innovations in the future should come from. The current way laboratories work and studies in general are performed, excludes cooporation by the way results are measured, published and put to market. So be brave, share and allow for more insecurity during the process. People are awesome!
Love your videos, and even if a certain technology doesn't pan out in the future, the promise of trial and error is exciting. I hope to be still around to see these technologies in use🙂
Graphene will be an important part of our future. I'm looking forward to seeing where we will be in just a few short years. Very exciting to say the least.
What I was always curious about graphene is if there are any research about health issues. Because it starts to seem more and more like a wonder material, and the last time that happened, humanity put asbestos everywhere. I know carbon is probably fine for our bodies, being one of life's basic blocks. I am just curious about the scale of graphene. For example, if it is ok to inhale such small particles.
It is never a good idea to inhale nanoparticles, imo.
@@paulferguson4930 well yeah. However, asbestos for example does a lot more damage apart from the fact that you inhale small particles. I mean even inhaling wood dust for a long time will damage your lungs. But wont cause cancer, i think. So what I wonder in the end, is if there is a toxicity danger with graphene.
@@michaelstrantzalis I've been trying to find out the same thing for CNTs but I have yet to see anything conclusive that CNTs or graphene are carcinogenic. When these materials are incorporated in things like plastics or rubber then there is virtually no risk to the consumer/user but handling these materials during the manufacturing process obviously needs to be done in a safe manner.
From space elevator to the replacement for horse hair. It sounds like its a decent advance in technology that some tried to sell as the second coming.
Hi Matt - enjoyed the video. Well researched and put together. In addition to the companies mentioned, it might be appropriate to look at NanoXplore, which is currently producing graphene at scale for about $10/kg, exfoliating graphite using a water based, carbon negative process.
They are currently producing batteries through VoltaXplore and enhancing plastics and other materials for a variety of applications.
fun fact: graphene (LiPo) batteries are already a thing in drone racing/freestyle. they are a little bulkier and heavier than the average, but can deliver extreme output currents, have a great cycle life, and very little voltage sag under high loads
Are they allowed in Formula E?
@@niclaskarlin i would think so, but i'm pretty sure they run on LiIon betteries. those have a much higher power density. high drain LiPos like that really only make sense in RC and drones, because the power/weight ratios there are beyond good and evil
Better idea would be "how concrete can solve our graphene problem" Because right now and within the next half or full decade, graphene realistically isn't going to be hit capacity where it can reach mass market because its production is extremely complex.
Are you in the industry or something?
I’ve never been disappointed in graphene and nanotubes. These are very sophisticated materials. They require bleeding edge technology to make and utilize - technology we don’t really have yet.
But that will come. Following the research, I’m seeing new methods being developed. It will take some years, but they’ll get there. There are also similar technologies based on boron. These are considered, in some ways to be superior to graphene. It may even be possible to combine the two, or anything else that may be discovered.
We’re just at the very beginning of these new materials technologies.
I agree that CNTs are sophisticated materials but the technologies used to produce them have been around for quite a while. The fluidized bed reactors used to make CNTs by the CVD process definitely have challenges in scalability, but more recently, rotating kiln technology has been adopted that is operating today at the 50 TPA level and will be at the 1500 TPA level by next year.
Matt Ferrell you got BUSTED son :)
As a retired swedish ww2 hero I want to add to the story: We should be thankful and grateful to Norway since most of the nature in the form of scenery, soil / stones and wildlife etc has drifted from the Norwegian hills and mountains to form what today is called sweden. Not many mention this fact - but we should do more to show gratitude toward Norway and the norwegian people. And we should also finally admit that the vikings originally came from Norway (and later spread to sweden and denmark).
Is breathing graphene dust dangerous for health? If yes no way it should be used in construction
No one goes into construction for their health.
@@1pcfred I would never buy a house that contains asbestos because I would not be in a position to do anything with its walls or components. Makes those houses built in the 20th century with asbestos worthless to me. Same would apply to graphene for me (if it is ever used) except i have scientific proof it is 100% harmless.
@@Will88ks asbestos is harmless too as long as you don't breathe it in. I've worked with the stuff plenty and it's never hurt me. Mostly it was a mob scam to create jobs. Asbestos remediation is a racket. They seal the jobsite off and you can't see what's going on inside there then they charge the client a fortune. They act like the stuff is the most deadly poison known to Man and idiots buy into it. We still commonly use other building materials that are a lot more harmful than asbestos is.
We need to put graphene in our articles and videos so we can solve our graphene hype problem.
Will it become the new environmental hazard taking over for plastic with a large industrial use?
As the concrete and materials infused with it breakdown and release the particles into the environment. It has been shown it can effect health with enough exposure.
Interestingly, I heard the US government was thinking of making a green energy initiative for construction companies who adopt this new technology for their concrete
It will be called "Cash for Clinkers"
Speaking of hype Matt .... you're always referring to our carbon footprint and reducing it and I was just wondering if you ever considered that hydroponic farmers go to great lengths to add CO2 to the air mix inside their green houses? Because it significantly aids plant growth. adding a CO2 injection system to y our agricultural setup isn't cheap either so you can bet those farmers aren't doing it for no good reason. All we ever hear is that carbon is a greenhouse gas but it's so much more than that and besides, so is water vapor - it's a green house gas too, a more powerful one in fact. Should we make an attempt to reduce the amount of water across the planet?
In any case ...it ought to be obvious to everyone that us going to great lengths to reduce the carbon dioxide in the air globally is detrimental to plant growth. Why would anyone in their right mind do such a thing when plants are the basis of all food chains on the planet?
Do you still believe there was/is a pandemic? Have you seen piles of burning corpses in the street? If you haven't then there's been no pandemic and my point with this is that ... for the most part 'science' has gone along with the fairytale for the past two years. Given that this is the case how can we so sure that what we're being told about the climate is any more legitimate?
Jeez...
@@chaunceyfeatherstone6209 Yeah, agreed... 100% oof 😬
I'll just leave this here: “No, more CO₂ won't help us grow more food” ua-cam.com/video/qFA7Sui8w_g/v-deo.html
Plastic was hyped to change the world when it was invented. People were amazed and excited about this new super cheap but strong material. Years went by, then decades, and people lost interest and forgot about it. Almost overnight plastic did finally change the world - 40 years later. These things take time. I don't think it will take 40 years but a few decades is not out of the question. Graohene will revolutionize every single industry. It will change the world in ways we can't imagine right now.
Carbon nanotubes have been through the exact same cycle. A huge wave of hype and excitement crashes into the brick wall that is the journey from the lab to the shelf. I think it is telling that nobody even mentions CNTs in these comments about a video on graphene. The reality though is that CNTs are crossing the commercialization threshold now and prices have come down to the point where an expanding number of applications are economically feasible. This trend will accelerate now that production methods have been developed that are scalable into the hundreds and thousands of tons per year.
@@paulferguson4930 I also have found it a little strange that CNT are rarely even mentioned in graphene video's. Such a similar product and also amazing. I can't wait to see what can be done with them.
ONLY OVERHYPED NARNIA TECH IN THIS CHANNEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Matt: "Hey, graphene is awesome."
Ian Crossland: "Did someone say 'graphene'?"
Ahh…..more fantastic engineering info from Matt…..cheers for the great videos …..👍🇮🇲
Glad you like them!
@@UndecidedMF Very well presented, and very easy to understand, with great content, one of my favourite channels, cheers Matt.👍🇮🇲
The problem with both graphene and carbon nanotubes, as I understand it, is producing large continuous spans of it. Tiny fragments can be made, and I think for carbon nanotubes we can reliably get a few feet at a time, but the dreams of things like space elevators rely on hundreds of miles of continuous span.
That's still in the future, but the applications being explored for the small amounts we can make today is exciting.
I think this is just one of those technologies that just plain takes a while to develop. We're used to having problems take a couple years to solve but things like graphene and fusion take a lot longer. If we live long enough, I have no doubt we'll find technological problems that take centuries or millennia to solve.
Graphene's slow development has been overwhelming but the belief in the tech is still there. The use of CO to create it seems more realistic and cost effective as many industrial plants have CO as a waste product. If piped and captured it could be a win win for both industrial emissions and graphene development
A while ago Robert Murray Smith went into a bit of detail about how he was testing making graphene-coated sand for use in concrete. He mentioned that quartz sand is catalytic to the process of producing graphite.
It looks like there's a few papers on graphene-coating sand, but all Robert was doing was using a kiln and a bit of sugar as a source of the carbon.
Does grapheme have asbestos characteristics when snapped and broken, becoming airborne and inhalable?
If graphene doesn't oxidize and can be made cheaply it would an excellent replacement for steel rebar, which rusts and cracks when used in concrete structures. And if that added strength could reduce weight that would be a plus.
There is a lot of literature out there about this. Also, places like the Center for Advanced Construction Materials at the University of Texas at Austin are doing a lot of work with CNTs in cement right now.
Being a member of a maintenance team, the one thing that worries me about graphene at scale is that all of this may be true, but it also reminds me of the "magic mineral" - asbestos. It really does do everything everyone says, it's great, and deadly. When I hear these miracle materials, I'm always wondering "what health issues are going to crop up in twenty years due to a lack of a proper understanding and adequate funding for maintaining graphene materials?"
That tetris prop you have in the background is backwards and i can’t stop getting distracted by it
Concrete with graphene to make it rigid and long lasting without rust issues is fantastic. I wish I know a place where you can purchase graphene based fittings to install or mix into your concrete...
Using unlike charges to "exfoliate" graphine from graphite makes total sense since electrons flow on the surface of a conductor.
I add graphene to all my construction coatings that are not water based. My walls and ceiling now dissipate heat, the wood stove no longer rusts, and an epoxy counter can withstand 300 degrees C.
Switching to geopolymer and alkali activated pozzolans means the benefits construed for expensive graphene aggregates can be got from cheap biochar, while sequestering carbon taken from the air by trees.
Isaac Arthur's upward bound series on youtube is a really interesting catalog of ways to get into space at industrial scale without necessarily needing space elevators or graphene supermaterials
The Aussie firm claim on their website they first wanted to revolutionize concrete, making it 4 x stronger, lasting 10,000 years. They claim their product was not wanted by the makers of Portland Cement. I wrote them about it but they didn't answer.
graphene piezo transducer in tires of EV suggests unlimited power with low thremal issues and could be added to numerous types of items like shoes and almost anything that could transmit energy back to the grid and or like with shoes could mean that they would last longer and beable to charge your phone after all day of walking and charging up then go into a dock and that dock could power your phone charger
Matt , I am still stuck on graphene.. and I have done some looking around to see if graphene itself responds to being put in an induction coil.. graphene has a heat transfer of around 3000 WM and diamonds known as in the past to be one of the best thermal conductor is at about 1000 WM. Just the thermal transfer is incredible . We use graphene for sink property for releasing heat. Yet I wonder if he could be best used to efficient to actually heat… such as melting ice … thank you
Maybe you know this
Just here to say I wish we used more concrete and less asphalt. Asphalt seems to need repair all the dang time. Pot holes and cracks galore.