[HN Gopher] Some graphene firms have reaped its potential but ot...
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Some graphene firms have reaped its potential but others are
struggling
Author : robaato
Score : 61 points
Date : 2025-10-13 08:53 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| chromehearts wrote:
| I'll be 6 feet under, the day graphene hits the market - possibly
| in a graphene coffin
| jrvarela56 wrote:
| The AI of chemical engineering/material science?
| jakedata wrote:
| There are two distinct use cases spelled out in this article.
| Electronic and photonic technology incorporating graphene to
| improve performance and efficiency and "we added graphene to
| stuff". Graphene cement, graphene carbon fibre - 3000 tons of
| graphene expected from one company in 2026.
|
| Try not to breathe any, studies are still pending but that stuff
| gets everywhere.
| withinboredom wrote:
| "Lets remove carbon from the atmosphere" ... humanity proceeds
| to invent ways to put more carbon in the atmosphere.
| withinboredom wrote:
| It's weird that this morning, it was getting upvotes, but in
| the afternoon, it is getting downvotes. Did something happen?
| rkomorn wrote:
| I'd look at what timezones were hitting 8-9am when
| downvotes started.
| mapt wrote:
| 100 years ago, asbestos was the new wonder material, and "We
| added asbestos to stuff" was a very common marketing bullet
| point for building materials. It found its way into flooring,
| mastic, the predecessors to drywall, ceiling texture,
| insulation, and anything and everything used near a combustion
| appliance.
|
| Literally just, take a process that used to use sand or
| horsehair or whatever filler, and add a significant portion by
| mass of asbestos powder instead.
| gcanyon wrote:
| I wonder if there are studies on the lives saved by
| asbestos's fireproofing feature vs. cost by its lung-disease-
| causing feature.
|
| Answering my own question: the WHO estimates it costs 200K
| lives per year. No estimates on the other side, but that's a
| big number to overcome...
|
| https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/asbestos
| bn-l wrote:
| I'm not sure if it's still the case but I searched of
| alibaba once and found huge rolls of asbestos for sale and
| massive supply capacity numbers. It was pretty shocking.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| It's still used in the industry. And it can be used
| safely, as long as you follow the precautions (handling,
| encapsulation) and mind the lifecycle. But China being
| China? Haha no.
| some_random wrote:
| It's also still used in building materials in developing
| countries, it's an incredible material that happens to
| give people cancer, mainly workers.
| mapt wrote:
| The R-value performance numbers for asbestos as building
| insulation are wildly divergent, but most of them aren't
| especially competitive with modern materials.
|
| I'm not sure how to square that with claims like:
|
| > With phenolic resins, asbestos products are produced
| which will provide insulation and retain strength when
| subjected to 5,000degF for periods of minutes (1 to 30
| minutes) . See Figure 2.1 in which a rocket motor part is
| subjected to a temperature of 5,000degF. Figure 2.1.
| Rocket motor aft (asbestos-phenolic insulator) before and
| after firing at 5,000degF.
|
| > The temperature approximately 1/8 in. from the surface
| exposed to 5,000degF will be approximately 200degF after
| 1/2 to 1 min. of exposure.
|
| > When combined with magnesium carbonate and other
| similar products, heat insulators can be produced which
| will be useful for many years in such applications as
| boilers operating at temperatures from 500deg to
| 1,200degF or 1,800degF.
|
| We seem to use a matted "Ceramic Fiber" roll for its
| high-heat insulation capabilities these days, up to about
| 2300F-2600F depending on type. Asbestos fiber insulation
| seems to be good to somewhere between 1500F to 2700F
| depending on how you use it. Ceramic fiber is
| carcinogenic in a similar way to asbestos, but apparently
| considerably safer due to the fiber length/alignment.
| newpavlov wrote:
| >Try not to breathe any, studies are still pending but that
| stuff gets everywhere.
|
| I would understand such comment in the context of carbon
| nanotubes or fullerenes, but graphene? Have you forgot that
| graphite is literally a bunch of stacked graphene?
|
| Considering how much graphite pencils are used across the
| world, we would've seen hypothetical negative effects already
| with a high degree of confidence.
|
| Yes, graphene production aims to produce larger sheets, but it
| only makes graphene less biologically active, not more.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> Considering how much graphite pencils are used across the
| world, we would 've seen hypothetical negative effects
| already with a high degree of confidence._
|
| Graphitosis is the graphite equivalent of silicosis and
| asbestosis so yes we've got plenty of evidence it's harmful,
| but it's mostly a problem with occupational exposure where
| large amounts of graphite dust are produced.
|
| That might change if there's tiny sheets of graphene flaking
| off everywhere from nanocoatings and it turns out to be
| carcinogenic for the same reason asbestos is (which isn't out
| of the question given the studies on CNTs and nanotoxicity in
| general).
| newpavlov wrote:
| IIUC graphitosis, silicosis, and black lung require to
| inhale ungodly amounts of dust. It's orders of magnitude
| more than we can expect from flaking-based trace
| contamination.
|
| Why do you expect a different result from "tiny sheets of
| graphene flaking off everywhere from nanocoatings" compared
| to the same flaking from graphite smeared across paper?
| throwup238 wrote:
| Pencil graphite breaks off in very large chunks and when
| you look at them in a microscope the particle size is in
| the micrometers. Those particles are too big to easily
| penetrate cells or deep tissue. You understand correctly
| about the dust issue.
|
| Nanosheets are a different story and I'm worried that the
| graphene produced for industrial applications will be
| much smaller, flake off much easier in the field as
| distinct sheets like from abrasion, and stay airborne for
| longer. In that form they're likely to behave like
| asbestos and the evidence is already pretty strong that
| they do.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| If we start to have huge amounts of it spread through house
| objects, than yeah, we can increase people's exposure by a
| large multiplier and get the known harmful effects we already
| know about.
|
| That said, I don't think we will ever have large amounts of
| it in house objects. Graphene doesn't seem to be useful that
| way. We may have it embedded in some material, but that will
| limit exposure to waste management and manufacture.
|
| Also, differently from asbestos, graphene is not chemically
| stable. So very small pieces of it have a limited half-life.
| SapporoChris wrote:
| My understanding is that it doesn't get everywhere at all. It
| appears to be confined to labs.
| observationist wrote:
| Some amount of graphene gets produced naturally. Graphite
| mining, processing, dyes, things that use carbon black, soot,
| etc - monolayer carbon structures are a byproduct of all sorts
| of things that humans have been exposed to throughout history.
| Graphene can be decomposed and metabolized; asbestos cannot,
| it's very stable in all sorts of places where the body cannot
| process it.
|
| It doesn't mean it's good - it can do damage in the time it's
| present in various systems in the body, but it's not going to
| present a chronic, persistent threat like asbestos.
|
| Graphene oxidizes relatively easily, and is vulnerable to all
| sorts of chemical processes that can attack the edges, and
| there are all sorts of metabolic pathways that can handle
| degrading and eliminating carbon. Natural decomposition from
| graphene in degrading concrete, asphalt, building materials,
| etc should handle it without any significant health risks, as
| well.
|
| Some amount of graphene is present in carbon black and ground
| charcoal that's been used for tattoos for at least 8,000 years
| (Otzi had some pretty cool tats) and hasn't presented any
| significant health threats.
|
| Don't go around inhaling graphene flakes, wear sensible PPE
| when handling it. Acute exposure is already known to be
| unhealthy. That said, carbon is processed pretty well by a
| multitude of organisms and natural chemical processes, making
| the risk of chronic graphene contamination fairly low. It's a
| different order of hazard than asbestos entirely, and by all
| the evidence available so far, carbon fibers are going to be
| the more dangerous material.
| mxmilkiib wrote:
| RIP Robert Murray-Smith, who decided to move on recently due to
| health and grief
|
| their Making Graphene and Graphene Oxide playlist;
|
| https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbQqm4rNo6243e69xp-ZPUkYD...
|
| a more recent 30m omnibus of a number of their graphene videos;
|
| https://youtu.be/iqOCtEsMWjs
|
| finishing with blood and milk and eggs!
|
| their last video;
|
| https://youtu.be/_RSiVrCsVH4
|
| and after;
|
| https://youtu.be/GhramXiUrY4
|
| cheers mate :')
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| didn't know he died... loved his non nonsense straight to the
| point videos. his video on making graphene with a laser disk
| had me almost buying an entire graphene lab at one point.
| marcosfelt wrote:
| It's also worth noting how insular and toxic some parts of the
| graphene world can be.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Does this mean that the people are bad for your mental health,
| or that the substance is bad for your physical health? I could
| believe either.
| marcosfelt wrote:
| More the people!
| Mengkudulangsat wrote:
| If you are doing a lot of miniature photographies, black paints /
| fabrics made with graphene are great for lighboxes.
|
| Musou black is what I tried.
| alansaber wrote:
| We peaked at graphene for disposable lab gloves
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I was studying an advanced degree at a school ~10 years ago and
| one of the teachers was "a bit" into graphene and they had done
| all kinds of cool stuff with it.
|
| One example was a floor material for care homes that could detect
| pressure in a 2D sense, so the floor itself could detect "fall
| events" and track movement + gait etc.
|
| And I think they had a prototype of a similar thing in Australia
| that weighed all trucks coming and going from a mine just under
| the road they drove, no need to stop on weighing stations.
|
| No idea where that went.
|
| Nowadays we'd do the fall detection with either a wrist device
| (any Apple Watch can do this) or cameras + "AI" detection. The
| floor is a lot more privacy preserving though, it only detected
| shapes and pressure.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| All the funding went to an AI assistant startup focused on
| making Anime avatars to replace friendships in preteens.
| fnord77 wrote:
| are the graphene clothing products (like graphene-x) just
| gimmicks?
| MountDoom wrote:
| It would seem so. Looking at their website, they're not made
| out of graphene. For example, their flagship jacket is
| described as nylon + polyurethane underneath.
|
| It looks like they're using "graphene" as a pigment in the
| plastic, and I'd wager this probably means "99% conventional
| black pigment and 1% graphene"...
| dcreater wrote:
| "What we've solved is the ability to grow consistent ultra high-
| performance graphene and to build it into a device,"
|
| Wait what? If this is actually true this Jensen is going to be
| the richest/most important. If $500B is being invested in
| Datacenters and this company is raising a few ten million,
| something isn't adding up here.
| pedalpete wrote:
| We use graphene in silicone for long-lasting, comfortable, dry
| EEG electrodes.
|
| I'll admit that it's pretty niche, but it is also used in tires,
| batteries, and as grounding in electronics.
|
| It isn't the easiest stuff to work with, I'll admit, and we've
| done some experiments in nanotubes as well.
|
| Happy to answer any questions.
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(page generated 2025-10-13 23:01 UTC)