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.
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.
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.
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.
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 5,000°F for periods of minutes (1 to 30 minutes) . See Figure 2.1 in which a rocket motor part is subjected to a temperature of 5,000°F. Figure 2.1. Rocket motor aft (asbestos-phenolic insulator) before and after firing at 5,000°F.
> The temperature approximately 1/8 in. from the surface exposed to 5,000°F will be approximately 200°F 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 500° to 1,200°F or 1,800°F.
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.
>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.
> 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).
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?
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.
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.
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 (Ötzi 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.
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.
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.
"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.
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"...
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
It's also still used in building materials in developing countries, it's an incredible material that happens to give people cancer, mainly workers.
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 5,000°F for periods of minutes (1 to 30 minutes) . See Figure 2.1 in which a rocket motor part is subjected to a temperature of 5,000°F. Figure 2.1. Rocket motor aft (asbestos-phenolic insulator) before and after firing at 5,000°F.
> The temperature approximately 1/8 in. from the surface exposed to 5,000°F will be approximately 200°F 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 500° to 1,200°F or 1,800°F.
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.
>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.
> 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).
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?
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.
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.
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 (Ötzi 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.
My understanding is that it doesn't get everywhere at all. It appears to be confined to labs.
"Lets remove carbon from the atmosphere" ... humanity proceeds to invent ways to put more carbon in the atmosphere.
It's weird that this morning, it was getting upvotes, but in the afternoon, it is getting downvotes. Did something happen?
I'd look at what timezones were hitting 8-9am when downvotes started.
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.
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.
All the funding went to an AI assistant startup focused on making Anime avatars to replace friendships in preteens.
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 :')
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.
I'll be 6 feet under, the day graphene hits the market - possibly in a graphene coffin
The AI of chemical engineering/material science?
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.
We peaked at graphene for disposable lab gloves
It's also worth noting how insular and toxic some parts of the graphene world can be.
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.
More the people!
"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.
are the graphene clothing products (like graphene-x) just gimmicks?
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"...