Graphene. wikimedia commons
Hello steemians, its been a while here, I hope you all are doing just great. I’ve been wanting to write a post a long time ago, but there’s just no inspiration, thanks to all the wonderful steemstem authors here on steemit, great posts everyday, morning, afternoon, evening, night…, even at midnight. Once I log in on steemit and I go to steemstem, I know my knowledge bank is sure to grow.
So I got my inspiration from you all and I have this little gift to say thank you, you’ll be amazed at what I just found out; "THE STRONGEST MATERIAL ON EARTH IS ALSO THE THINNEST AND LIGHTEST EXISTING MATERIAL*. Intriguing, not so? Amazing even is the fact that every single human who attended nursery school or draws or writes has come across this material
What could it be?
I remember vividly, when we were little my sister and I would playfully paint our thumb with pencil lead and create our thumbprints by placing the painted thumbs on a paper, I always loved doing this but we became afraid of this act and stopped when someone told us that the pencil leads were chemicals ( as kids, anything said to be chemical is understood to be definitely harmful and poisonous). Growing up, I learnt pencils might not be so poisonous as lead pencils were not made of lead itself, rather they were mostly made of non-toxic graphite.
So recently I decided to make a research on graphite and I found out something really amazing; GRAPHITE IS MADE UP OF MANY LAYERS OF GRAPHENE, I became even more confused, what is graphene? What is graphite?, I muttered. So I decided to search even more.
GRAPHITE AND GRAPHENE, WHAT ARE THEY?
I don’t like big grammar, so I made sure I got the simplest answer. Simply put, graphite is a form (or you can say an allotrope, if you like grammar) of carbon, in fact, it is the most stable form of carbon.(simple as ABC). On the other hand, graphene is found inside graphite, so if you put plenty graphenes together, what you get is graphite, and if you break down graphite and you take a single layer of it, what you get is graphene. C’est fini.
Okay, so we now know what graphite and graphene is, what are we supposed to do with that?
Wait, I’m not done yet, lets take a sneak peek into the world of graphene
So, Mr GRAPHENE, tell us more about yourself
My name is graphene, I am a semi-metal, not really a metal but I am able to conduct heat and electricity, I am a very strong material, for your information, I am stronger than steel. You can call me the new Mr incredible, you know why, compared to my strength, I am unbelievably lightweight and flexible, and my diameter is said to be a million times smaller than that of a single strand of a human hair (that fact still amazes me).
Graphene has got a lot of wonderful characteristics and these can prove to be an immense blessing to humans and living things in general.
So what can you do for us, Mr GRAPHENE
Let us analyse some of the areas in which graphene can be of use
GRAPHENE MEMBRANE IS HERE- drink clean water, eat healthy food, and breathe clean air
One of the properties of graphene is its ability to form an accurate obstacle when handling liquid and gases. In a gas mixture, the membranes of graphene are able to effectively remove any Water that may be present. In water, they are able to separate organic solvents that may be present. Graphene membranes are even able to stop helium- the hardest gas that usually proves unstoppable.
So graphene membranes can be used to filter water, separate gases and remove salts.
Graphene can also be used as food coatings to make food and perishable food items stay fresher for longer, and it can also be used in packaging of medicines to prevent water and air from getting into the medicines.
Graphene, being able to remove toxic substances, can also do away with the harmful carbon dioxide present in the air, and so here comes clean air for everyone.
graphene membrane. From flickrMore, Mr GRAPHENE is great at team work
Add other materials to graphene and you are sure to get even more benefits! Lets analyse a few.
COMPOSITE MATERIALS USING GRAPHENE AS A BASE
GRAPHENE+PAINT: when graphene is combined with paint, the result is a coating which works to fight against rust and deterioration of metals. So in the nearest future, we can believe that a rust-free world is possible with the invention of a graphene based paint.
GRAPHENE+TITANIUM: titanium is one of the materials used in making aircrafts, it is strong and not as heavy as steel. If combined with graphene, which is even more than a thousand times lighter, the result would be the lightest aircraft in history, and considering the fact that graphene is very strong (stronger than steel), we would have the strongest aircraft in history, and not forgetting the fact that graphene is able to reduce the effect of lightening strike and increase the efficiency of fuel, thus providing us the safest and greenest plane.
GRAPHENE+BRICK OR STONE: when bricks and stones used for building are coated with graphene, this results in weatherproofed houses as graphene works to prevent water and oxygen molecules from penetrating surfaces.
Don’t go yet, still got more goodies for you.
What if I tell you that its possible to charge your phone from 0% to 100% in the space of seconds.
Hahaha, you’ll say my battery is damaged right? But that’s not so, remember I told you that you can call graphene Mr incredible, yeah, this seals it all!
GRAPHENE+BATTERY: graphene has a high conductivity, flexibility and has a high surface area. Regular lithium ion batteries lose their charge quickly and usually take hours to charge. Incorporating graphene into lithium ion batteries can produce batteries that are lightweight and durable and these batteries would take very lesser time to charge and they can be sure to have a longer life span.
Its not over yet, there are still even much more amazing things graphene has to offer, but right now, I need to get back to work. I hope you like this little gift. Oh, I haven’t even written a conclusion yet. Let me do that right away
CONCLUSION
Making this research on graphene has really been an interesting one for me, prior to now, I used to believe the only way to get clean water was through chlorine, but now I know that graphene does even better.
I used to think that to get your food to last longer, you put them in the refrigerator, but now I know that graphene not only makes food last longer, but even makes it stay fresher.
A world free of harmful air is possible, thanks to graphene. A rust free world is near, graphene would do the magic.
Sooner, we can be assured of the safest, lightest and most durable aircraft ever, graphene is going to make these possible.
All of these and even more surprises coming your way, stay tuned and watch out for my next post, I’ll be talking about graphene supercapacitors and storing wind power and solar power with the aid of graphene, and then I’ll have another little surprise for everybody. I won’t be away for too long, I promise to be back sooner than you think.
Thanks for reading.
The results of my research were from these sites;
Graphene and graphite
Characteristics of graphene
Uses of graphene, 2, 3, 4
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