NEW TECH BUILDING BLOCK : GRAPHENE

By James Carlini

Graphene is a new “semi-metal” material that is made out of carbon and has the characteristics of the hardness of a diamond, better electrical conductivity than copper or silver, and more durability than the strength of steel.

A hexagonal mesh structure one atom in thickness

There are companies currently researching the applicability of graphene for electronics, Smartphones, batteries, filtering film for windows, and so many other applications which cut across many industries. It is a material to keep track of since it will probably be used in the products you use on a daily basis.

As I said in an earlier article, “When it is perfected, it will be as common as a transistor in many devices, edge technology, and high-tech real estate.” This is building block material that will become a common component in many products and industrial applications.

An excerpt from my upcoming book, Location Location Connectivity:

Think of graphene being used as a one-atom thick, micro-privacy drape that could filter out EMI (Electro Magnetic Interference) from car windows or buildings to eliminate EMI interference. This could be a new building block for secure wireless networks and other applications needing EMI filtering.

Using this type of EMI “graphene drape” could be a good way to secure trading floor networks in all the stock exchanges as well as other mission-critical wireless networks found in so many industries today. Because graphene is transparent, offices could have this applied to windows so that no one could intercept signals being emitted by a wireless router and being picked up by a directional antenna.

This definitely could be viewed as an “Intelligent Amenity” for 21st century real estate, especially those buildings wanting to offer security from electronic eavesdropping. New buildings would have it as part of the design spec and existing buildings could add it if they wanted to compete for security-conscious corporate tenants.

I am constantly researching the progress of this material and its applications because I think it will be used across the converging industries of real estate, infrastructure, communications, and Smartphone electronics as they impact regional economic development and sustainability.

How would you like a Smartphone that can re-charge in 20-30 seconds instead of four to five hours? What about electric cars that can charge up in two minutes instead of eight hours? Graphene material can make this happen and will obsolete the previous generation of products like flat screen TVs did with bulky, projector screen TVs.

We need to see more experimentation done, but the research has to be accelerated to get this component perfected and embedded into products ready for commercialization.

CARLINI-ISM: Graphene looks to be the “transistor” component of the 21st century.