Description of Challenge
To source new innovations to create a sustainable futureA new material with many exciting applications for sustainable technologies such as: making tiny batteries, desalinating water, extracting radio-active waste.
Solution
Graphene are extremely thin sheets of pure carbon first produced in 2004. It is the strongest known material with the highest electrical conductivity and has numerous other qualities, some of which promise significant advances in sustainable technologies and ecological restoration. Far smaller lighter batteries will benefit renewable energy systems, nano-porous sheets of Graphene can be produced to filter and desalinate water, it can extract radio-active elements from waste water and there are a great many other possibilities.
Early production had some significant environmental problems but techniques are improving and significant investment is being made in product development. However it has not yet been possible to create Graphene in commercial quantities. Some interesting parallel research has apparently replicated some Graphene qualities in material made from Hemp.
