The Applications of Graphene

As the novel material that is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010, Graphene has developed for a long time and applied in different field because of its outstanding properties.

Graphene-enhanced battery

         Picture 1: Graphene -enhanced battery

Nowadays, graphene is studied and used in Samsung, Huawei and electric vehicles, and the graphene-enhanced battery products keeps moving towards commercialization.

Graphene is a potent conductor of electrical energy, which benefited from its honeycomb lattice pattern. While there are certain types of batteries that are able to store a large amount of energy, they are very large, heavy and release energy slowly. By using graphene in these batteries with high capacity, the batteries can charge and discharge quickly.

Compared to traditional battery, graphene-enhanced battery has:

• Higher capacity to store electric energy

• Faster speed to charging and discharging electric charge.

• Light weight.

• Longer service time.

• Higher price and more complex manufacture method.

Drug carrier


                               Picture 2: Graphene drug carrier and its stowages.
The biomedical applications of graphene-based materials have grown rapidly in the past few years. Graphene and graphene oxide have been extensively explored for biomedical applications due to their unique properties: two-dimensional planar structure, large surface area, chemical and mechanical stability, superb conductivity and good bio-compatibility.

Graphene used for drug delivery is about one-two nanometer thick, with size is between a few to 100s of nanometer, and they are ideal nano-carriers for effective gene and drug delivery. Graphene and graphene oxide are used to prevent unsought drug release into the blood stream during drug transportation and is therefore used for the effective drug transportation of anti-tumor drugs in tumor cells or tissue. They have flexibility and capability to design complex multifunctional drug systems for combined therapies. They have high drug loading capacity. Both covalent and non-covalent modifications can be used to give specific biological activity to G and GO, and also to improve the bio-compatibility and colloidal stability.

Graphene jacket


                                     Picture 3: Graphene jacket
One side of the jacket is coated entirely in graphene, which looks gun-metal grey. The other side is matt black and made from high-strength nylon. Depending on which way around you wear it and what you do in it, the jacket will interact with human’s body and the world around it in a series of different ways. Due to Graphene’s outstanding properties, the graphene jacket has the following unique properties:

• Help people regulate skin temperature and make body warm up rapidly.

• Strong and light weighting.

• Waterproof, breathable and bacteriostatic, which make people comfortable and avoid making jacket smell.

Sensor


                     Picture 4: graphene used in sensor
A sensor is a device that detects events that occur in the physical environment, and responds with an output, usually an electrical, mechanical or optical signal. Graphene’s unique optical properties, excellent electrical conductivity, high carrier mobility and many other attributes can be greatly beneficial for sensor functions. Its large surface area due to the large surface-to-volume ratio is able to enhance the surface loading of desired biomolecules, and excellent conductivity and small band gap can be beneficial for conducting electrons between biomolecules and the electrode surface.

• Smaller and lighter

• More sensitive and able to detect smaller changes in matter.

• Cheaper and work more quickly.

Conclusion

Due to the outstanding properties, graphene has great potential to use in wide field. However, graphene is not easy to manufacture in high quality, which limit the application of graphene.