Science behind Pencil:
- 72% of Earth's surface is filled with water, and 97% of the water we have is salty seawater. Therefore, it is not going to much longer before we run out of drinking water.
- In fact, even today, there are many lives that suffer and die without access to drinking water in some parts of the world.
- Apart from water, we have also been depleting natural resources like Oil and Natural gas for Industrialization and Transportation. There is a limitation to such Non-renewable resources, and someday Earth will run out of it completely.
At this juncture, it is critical to think about our survival and sustainability for the future.
Do Science and Technology have a solution to sustainability ?
In fact, even today, there are many lives that suffer and die without access to drinking water in some part of the world.
Apart from water, we have also been depleting natural resources like Oil and Natural gas for Industrialization and Transportation. There is limitation to such Non-renewable resources and someday Earth will run out of it completely.
At this juncture, it is critical to think about our survival and sustainability for the future.
Do Science and Technology have a solution to sustainability?
The obvious solutions that occur to an ordinary person are Desalination and Electric vehicles. However, they aren't as simple as they sound!
Establishing a desalination plant of such magnitude could cost somewhere around 13 Trillion dollars!
Additionally, operating this plant will require an enormous amount of resources and energy incurring further costs. Therefore, desalination plants aren't a viable solution at this point of time for our drinking water scarcity.
Let's move to transportation. It could take up to 20-30 hours to completely charge a mid-size Electric car.
So, with this limitation, Electric cars don't appear to be a solution to the fuel crisis.
Just imagine how better would the world be if we have a simple water filter that could separate salt from seawater!
What if we could charge our Smart Phones completely in just 5 seconds!
How about charging an electric car in 30 seconds!
Not at all. Fortunately, such things are technologically possible, and there is R&D work in progress towards achieving this marvellous feat! Someday in the near future, such technologies may reach regular consumers.
You will be surprised to know that the one-stop solution to all these problems is Pencil!!! Really?? Yes!!! Let's see how...
As we know, Graphite in the Pencil is used for writing which is made of Carbon atoms.
Using a pencil, let's draw a line on paper and observe it through a powerful Microscope. Just assume it can show the Graphite line at an atomic scale.
At this atomic scale, the structure looks like a stack of paper having many layers one over the other.
Let's just take one layer from this and observe its structure. It looks like a honeycomb made up of many Carbon atoms. The thickness of this layer is equivalent to that of a Carbon atom.
Therefore, any Graphite line on paper is made up of millions of such layers at a microscope or atomic scale.
In 2004, Physicists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov conducted a simple experiment using some Graphite particles and scotch tape.
As shown in the image, they placed Graphite particles over the tape, folded it and observed the Graphite particles being separated it and observed the Graphite particles being separated. Technically, those millions of layers explained earlier got separated each time gradually.
They repeated this experiment plenty of times, and each time more and more layers of Graphite were separated. And...
At the end of the experiment, they were left with just one layer of Carbon atoms called "Graphene"!
Graphene:
This outstanding discovery yielded them the Noble prize for Physics 2010!
Surprising, isn't it? Want to know why this simple experiment was considered for such an honour?
Prior to this discovery, Scientists strongly believed that it is impossible to extract a single layer of Graphite as it is chemically unstable. In spite of that, these two Physicists demonstrated Graphene extraction using a simple method that fetched them the honour.
So why is Graphene so important ?
It is the strongest material discovered on Earth so far. Hundreds of times more potent than steel. Even an Elephant standing on it cannot break it.
So it can be used to build Aircraft, Spacecrafts, Satellites, Cars, Motorcycles, Bulletproof jackets, etc. With high durability. In spite of being stronger, this material is millions of times thinner than paper, as flexible as rubber and transparent too! Also, Graphene is 1000 times a better conductor of Electricity compared to copper.
We may see super slim electronic devices built using Graphene in the future. Phones, Tablets and Laptops as thin as paper! Just like paper, we will be able to fold devices and carry it in our pockets.
Therefore, Graphene has the capability to shape the future of electronics.
Charging time consumed by Mobile Phones and Laptops today is a significant inconvenience. In the future... Using capacitors made of Graphene as Mobile Phone batteries could significantly reduce the charging time up to 5 seconds! Similarly, an Electric car can be charged in 30 seconds!.
Various researches have proven that salt icons in water can be easily filtered used Graphene materials. Lockheed Martin is already working on a research program to manufacture a Graphene-based water filter. Wish we could have those filters in our homes soon.
Coming to solar energy, with current technological limitations, we haven't been able to store solar energy efficiently. Using Graphene, we will be able to address this challenge.
- Solar panels made of Graphene will be able to store solar energy in electrons in the panel itself.
- On the whole, Graphene has got the potential to eradicate the power crisis completely.
- I hope now it makes sense why this discovery made using Pencil and tape deserved Nobel prize.
- However, there are huge challenges associated with manufacturing Graphene for such commercial purposes.
If you are interested to learn more facts about Graphene, Nano Technology and other Science and Engineering concepts, then follow this Blog.
THANK YOU...
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