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Tough material, 1 atom thick, has scientists abuzz
Richmond Times Dispatch ^ | August 8, 2009 | ROBERT S. BOYD

Posted on 08/08/2009 10:39:58 PM PDT by Swordmaker

WASHINGTON -- Imagine a carbon sheet that's only one atom thick but is stronger than diamond and conducts electricity 100 times faster than the silicon in computer chips.

That's graphene, the latest wonder material coming out of science laboratories around the world. It is creating tremendous buzz among physicists, chemists and electronic engineers.

"It is the thinnest known material in the universe and the strongest ever measured," Andre Geim, a physicist at the University of Manchester, England, wrote in the June 19 issue of the journal Science.

"A few grams could cover a football field," Rod Ruoff, a graphene researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, said by e-mail. A gram is about one-thirtieth of an ounce.

Like diamond, graphene is pure carbon. It forms a six-sided mesh of atoms that, through an electron microscope, looks like a honeycomb or piece of chicken wire. Despite its strength, it's as flexible as plastic wrap and can be bent, folded or rolled up like a scroll.

(Excerpt) Read more at 2.timesdispatch.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: graphene; science; scientists; stringtheory
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1 posted on 08/08/2009 10:39:58 PM PDT by Swordmaker
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To: Swordmaker

That would make quite a knife.


2 posted on 08/08/2009 10:42:39 PM PDT by PetroniusMaximus
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To: Swordmaker

Carbon is illegal under the new Cabal. Go to prison racist scientists.


3 posted on 08/08/2009 10:45:58 PM PDT by Shady (The Fairness Doctrine is ANYTHING but fair!!!!)
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To: Swordmaker

Graphite. Knew it. Yawn.


4 posted on 08/08/2009 10:46:45 PM PDT by dr_who
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To: Swordmaker
Physorg had an article about this. Looks promising. Carbon's cheap too. If they keep advancing the manufacturing process this could be huge.
5 posted on 08/08/2009 10:47:46 PM PDT by allmost
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To: Swordmaker

I want a shiny black bug suit to make me invulnerable. There’s things I want to do.


6 posted on 08/08/2009 10:51:14 PM PDT by Dumpster Baby (Bacon,smokless powder,and boobs are proof that God loves us.)
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To: Swordmaker

Good. Braid it into strips and let’s get the space elevator going. We’re going to need a few other planets at this rate for the twits to save...


7 posted on 08/08/2009 10:55:33 PM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: Swordmaker
"A few grams could cover a football field," ...

Yeah, it COULD cover a football field ... if you could do it, you know?


8 posted on 08/08/2009 10:56:56 PM PDT by dr_lew
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To: Swordmaker
Oh great, I guess I will have to buy the White Album again (paraphrasing from the movie Men in Black).
9 posted on 08/08/2009 10:58:57 PM PDT by CatOwner
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To: Swordmaker

Tunable bandgaps for graphene layers are here now. Takes a structure of two parallel graphene monolayers. As per EE Times.


10 posted on 08/08/2009 10:59:22 PM PDT by scramaseaxe2002
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To: dr_who

Graphite is a bunch of carbon flecks that slide over each other. These guys claim to be making the stuff in a single continuous sheet (one giant molecule). Carbon bonds are dang strong. Imagine a material as strong as a diamond, but made in 2 dimensions instead of 3.

If they can somehow mass-produce it and build up layers it would bloody useful in a lot of applications. Imagine armor that is light, flexible, and dang near indestructible.


11 posted on 08/08/2009 10:59:51 PM PDT by Gideon7
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To: dr_lew

"It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it..."
12 posted on 08/08/2009 11:00:13 PM PDT by RandallFlagg (30-year smoker, E-Cigs helped me quit, and O wants me back smoking again?)
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To: PetroniusMaximus
Like diamond, graphene is pure carbon.

Oh oh! Stop right there! It's bad, evil carbon, one of the the most abundant elements in the universe, on earth, fundamental to all green AND human life, the foundation of our breathable atmosphere, of energy.

But is bad, and causes Gore-Bull warming so they say, so it must be taxed, because as we all know, taxes are the only thing that can can offset the global warming effects of all the carbon we produce by burning "fossil" fuels.

As our population grows and carbon emissions along with it, more and more "carbon taxes" are needed to nullify this phenomenon.

As we all know, because "scientists" said so, Carbon particles are highly intelligent little particles, or gases, (which ever form they prefer to be in) and they automatically trap less heat when they are taxed when released.

Thank goodness "scientists" discovered that these intelligent Carbons transform when they know greedy left wing governments, UN global governance Marxist elitists have lined their pockets with carbon taxes, and spread taxpayers money to line the pockets of all their friends and environut groups.

We'd all be doomed if it weren't for these "scientists", and our future is looking bright and rosy as every aspect of our lifes, every freedom, our happiness and prosperity is slowly stripped away by these carbon tax funded elitists who know better than all of us how we should live, what we should eat, think, say and do. They receive this great knowledge as compensation by the wise carbon particle, a gift in exchange for assuming the horrible burden and great risk lining their pockets with vast amounts of carbon tax brings upon them. they are sacrificing themselve for our benefit really.

( And they would probably believe all this stupid garbage I just wrote)

13 posted on 08/08/2009 11:15:00 PM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: Swordmaker
A few grams could cover a football field

Wouldn't you have to reline it?

14 posted on 08/08/2009 11:19:28 PM PDT by paul51 (11 September 2001 - Never forget)
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To: Swordmaker
Sounds like something the government would love to cap and tax.
15 posted on 08/08/2009 11:21:37 PM PDT by Zakeet (Obama: Always wrong, never in doubt.)
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To: PetroniusMaximus

Science fiction has talked about the mono-molecular blade forever. Sounds like this might be the reality. Infinte sharpness and apparently equivalent strength.

There’s been talk on some other threads about how no innovation means we’ll be trapped in a depression forever. I see nano-materials as having the potential to be the greatest innovation and economic boon in history. Do more with less actual material. It’s even therefore “green,” in a way, although I expect lots of hollering fron environazis about the dangers of these materials. (Which may indeed exist.)


16 posted on 08/08/2009 11:29:54 PM PDT by Sherman Logan ("The price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections." Thomas Sowell)
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To: Zakeet
Sounds like something the government would love to cap and tax.

This government will ban it.

17 posted on 08/08/2009 11:40:46 PM PDT by Swordmaker (remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!)
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To: Zakeet
Sounds like something the government would love to cap and tax.

This government will ban it.

18 posted on 08/08/2009 11:40:53 PM PDT by Swordmaker (remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!)
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To: Swordmaker

bump for later read


19 posted on 08/08/2009 11:41:36 PM PDT by Captain Beyond (The Hammer of the gods! (Just a cool line from a Led Zep song))
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To: Swordmaker
Soylent Carbon, we could all become cars and knives.
Or just Life-gems for the treasury.
20 posted on 08/08/2009 11:46:58 PM PDT by MaxMax (Will the real JIM THOMPSON please pick up the white phone)
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