Top 5 drawbacks of graphene | how to overcome it?

Why Graphene has not taken over the Field of Technology yet? Drawbacks of graphene. Graphene – this wonder material could revolutionize the tech industry.

Lets talk about the “Wonder material” – Graphene.

Read more: What is Nanotechnology and its applications

Overview

What is Graphene?

Graphene is a 2-dimensional sheet of carbon atoms together in a hexagonal lattice pattern. It is a single layer of Graphite (commonly used in pencil).

Who discovered graphene and when?

Two researchers from the University of Manchester (Professor Andre Geim and Professor Kostya Novoselov) discovered graphene in 2002.

Due to its amazing properties and advantages, it was named as “wonder material” and in 2010, it was awarded by Nobel prize in Physics for their work.

Here are some of the advantages of Graphene

Having so many advantages, why is it taking so long such that it is available for consumer use? |Major drawbacks of graphene

Most of the research stated that this wonder material could revolutionize the tech industry.

Why Graphene has not taken over the the Field of Technology yet?

Because there are few drawbacks of graphene yet to be given a proper solution.

5 Drawbacks of Graphene And its solution

Mass-Production of graphene is extremely hard & expensive

Generally, a small quantity of graphene sheet was acquired by the scotch-tape method (this method was used to discover graphene the first time).

Check out how the Scotch-tape method can be used to isolate graphene at home.

But when it comes to commercial manufacturing, a huge volume of graphene sheets needs to be extracted, which is extremely hard and the extracted material would also be consisting of some impurities/ defects.

To produce a defect-free graphene sheet, it is too expensive (at least for now).

Presently, 1 gram of graphene would cost around USD $100.
Although being 100 times stronger than steel, if a single sheet of graphene would cost $100 to manufacture, commercialization would take years to develop a proper method of production.

The solution to this issue would be to follow a new method of graphene production like manufacturing graphene using chemical vapor deposition (CVD), Exfoliation, epitaxy, nanotube slicing, etc. but it still has flaws and error rates.

It will be possible to reduce this problem by advancement in tech field which will lead us to find a cost-effective method of producing graphene in commercial scale.

Graphene is highly reactive with oxygen and heat (together).

As graphene has a higher potential towards an increase in temperature and due to its instability, By using the CVD method larger quantity of graphene can be produced but there is a huge disadvantage here.

If it reacts with oxygen in the presence of high temperature, results in producing graphene oxide which damages the material completely to a point at which it will lose the property of conducting electricity.

This drawbacks of graphene can be solved as follows
Procedure should be almost accurate to produce graphene in bulk quantity. Better products, components, circuitries such as capacitors, transistors should be introduced so that it is fast enough to be sync with graphene tech and also maintain its properties.

It is a good conductor, but can’t be switched off

This is the most considerable problem with graphene. Due to its zero bandgap, it doesn’t have a property of semiconductor. hence, it can’t be switched off.

If graphene has to be used in future processors and nanotechnology because of its amazing strength & flexibility; technology has to go to such an extent that engineers can produce an artificial bandgap in it, which intern reduces electron mobility to a level that it would replace silicon.

Large Graphene sheets consists of some toxic qualities and impurities

Graphite consists of toxic chemicals when heated to produce graphene, some of the toxic property and impurity remains in it. this can have a huge impact on the properties of graphene and can also be hazardous if used in smartphones, electrical components, and more, which we use in our daily life.

Many methods/ techniques can be used to reduce these impurities like chemical vapor deposition (CVD), epitaxial growth, thermal exfoliation of graphite oxide, MMC of graphite, etc.

The size and thickness of graphene sheets cannot be controlled

During production, graphene is not stable if the size is less than 20nm.

When graphite undergoes cross-planar oxidation, it results in cracking of top-most upper layer of graphene oxide, therefore size is not identical and large sheets can’t be produced.

To resolve this issue, sonication or fluid motion can be used through hydrodynamic drag, which reduces the size of graphene oxide by building a tensile stress which produce large sheets of graphene.

Read more: 5 impressive technology that can change our world

Conclusion

The hype about graphene will be real, it will obviously take over a large area in the tech industry like battery, processor, solar cells, etc.

We must also understand that this is a new emerging technology – fast, strong, and better than any other material we have used, hence to make graphene commercialize, it will take time to settle and reduce the drawbacks of graphene.
Within a few years and we might see a new transformation in the tech industry.

Check out this amazing video on Graphene technology by The Verge Science – https://youtu.be/IesIsKMjB4Y

Other Sources
(know more about advantages, applications and drawbacks of graphene) Click here

Companies that produce Graphene
https://www.graphene-info.com/companies-list/graphene-producers

Applications of Graphene
https://www.graphene-info.com/graphene-applications

Real time drawbacks of graphene |drawbacks of graphene (click here)