BENGALURU: Stronger vests for Army personnel, improved resistance of car tyres, cost-effective solar panels, lighter but stronger aircraft, and long-lasting concrete buildings can all be achieved with a flat, 2D, versatile material known as graphene. Separated from its mother compound Graphite, it has innumerable applications across sectors such as construction, power, electronics, packaging and automobiles. It is one of the best conductors of heat when compared to gold, silver and copper.
Graphene also has the exceptional potential to store charge as it is flat and has more surface area, which can be applied in today’s electric vehicles and batteries, said Arindam Ghosh, professor, at the Physics department, Indian Institute of Science. He was awarded the CNR Rao Bengaluru India Nano Science award on Friday at the event.
Ghosh delivered an insightful plenary talk, explaining, “Graphene is extremely hot because of the strong carbon-to-carbon bond and at an equivalent thickness to steel, graphene will be 200 times stronger. For technologies that develop ballistics, helmets and vests for soldiers, it is a wonderful system to explore if graphene can provide high-quality protection from bullets and other defences,” the professor emphasised.
He added that research has also shown using 0.3-0.4% of graphene in concrete would increase the lifeline of a building by 30-100%,which means each building will last three to four years more.
With special properties, graphene is 98% transparent, which is also an excellent material to use in solar panels. It can also have applications in the bottling and packaging industry. “If graphene is used in car tyres, it can improve road resistance and the lifetime of tyres by a considerable amount. However, if the car tyre industry alone is commercialised, it will require 10kilo tonne a year,” Ghosh explained.
The biggest challenge in 2D materials is the production. Prof. Ghosh said that the current global production capacity for such materials is only 2.5 kilotonnes a year. “The demand is 300-400 tonnes per year. As and when new technologies evolve out of 2D materials the expected demand will grow to 10,000 kilo tonne per year, this needs to be addressed. The 2D material industry is also not standardised. The quality and device performance need global standardization strategies. Reducing costs is also another challenge,” Ghosh said.
He added that By 2030-35 we can see 2D materials coming in mainstream electronics, quantum computing and more.