Minseo Kim, The Winchester School
Ever since the Industrial Revolution which began in the 18th Century in Britain, our humanity had faced a substantial increase in the standards of living to that of before as it made transportation and production much more efficient. However, our humanity has also faced a myriad of problems mainly due to the steep rise in the emission of carbon dioxide, ever since this revolution, which has led to an accumulation of these gases in the atmosphere and further leading to what we call it a ‘global warming’. Global warming is not the only problem we are faced with; we are also confronted with the depletion of irreplaceable resources such as energy, water, and crude oil which some of it will run out before the end of 2040. This is not a fictional story as the problem deteriorates every single minute, even now. Just like no one expected an outbreak of COVID-19, which is ruining every aspect of our lives, the problems we are faced with now can happen or deteriorate at any time shortly. We are certain that it is an inevitable tragedy. We, as humanity, must take action to this, but what exactly?
There is a copious number of new materials that can catalyze the development of sustainable technologies like solar panels, artificial photosynthesis, or water treatment. In addition to this, there has been a torrent of research coming out each week about how perovskite materials, how platinum catalysts, and how nitrogen-doped carbon catalysts can help the development of such sustainable artwork.
However, there is this magical material that can be the solution to almost all the problems humanity may face, graphene.
Graphene was found in 2004 by Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov who have won the Nobel Prize for such discovery. It is almost one-atom-thick, which is basically the single-layer of graphite that is commonly used in materials like pencils. But what is so magical about this common material that can be found around us, and why is this the solution to all of our problems? First, when graphenes are tilted within a certain angle, they tend to conduct electricity with no resistance, which basically is a superconductor. This has the possibility to be implemented in various scopes of Energy-tech. Second, its characteristic of being hydro-phobic can be beneficial in water treatment and artificial photosynthesis as well. Precise look into graphene further can help us understand how the implementation of this material can boost the possibility of sustainable living.
Graphene can effectively be used in water treatment in converting dirty and unhygienic water to fresh and drinkable water.
If we take a look at this in terms of accelerating rise in the population level each day, there will be an expected rise in demand for water and food; this would definitely help. In fact, 70% of our planet is covered with water, and from that 75%, 97.5% is seawater, 2% Ice, and only 0.5% is safe to drink. From this perspective, water seems very scarce, and it is already happening in some countries.
It has also been reported that 160 million children are already exposed to lack of hygienic water which would further rise over time with a rise in population and a temperature rise.
In solution to this, scientists already took a great step to help solve this issue. According to the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, they have developed a water filter membrane called ‘GraphAir’ which is basically a microscopic nanochannel that is much different from that of conventional water filters when it comes to filtering water into fresh and safe-to-drink water. According to their research from the Sydney team in 2018, they have undergone an experiment to filter out contaminated and dirty Sydney Harbour water which was found to be astonishing. Unlike the normal filter, which only filtered out approximately 50% of the contaminants in the water, this GraphAir successfully filtered out 99% of the contaminants and was determined safe to drink.
Furthermore, another research in 2019 showed us with another shocking result that they found the filter’s ability to prevent salt from seawater from passing through. This research was possible as graphene has characteristics of being hydrophobic which repels water and moisture. Once narrow pores are made throughout the filter, rapid water permeation is proved to be possible. Hence, this filter lets water molecules to pass but prevents other contaminants and is filtered out. Just like this experiment proved to be so, there would be soon replacement of desalination to graphene filter which is more efficient, cheaper, and simpler to produce than that of conventional filters we use as of now. If this can be mass-produced and be implemented all around the world, there would be a great change in the way we live significantly. People living in the region with a lack of freshwater can convert seawater or any contaminated water to which they can drink, definitely reducing exposure to death due to lack of water.
Moreover, the cost of production in various sectors would significantly be reduced. For example, agriculture, live stocks as well as the chemical industry that requires a significant amount of water. This would further enhance our standard of living. Furthermore, if hydrogen fuels are made applicable in the future, this graphene filter can cope with the rise in demand for H2O in converting it to H2 and O2 through an endothermic reaction.
The rise in the sea-level might also slightly be reduced if we attempt this on a mass-scale around the world if possible.
Water is a necessity which is irreplaceable as we require it for the survival of humanity. However, some people living in a region devoid of these necessities find it very difficult to cope with. If our population rises every day, this may be a ubiquitous trend found all around the world. Hence, GraphAir, which filters out all the contaminants and gives us freshwater as a product can have a permeating impact on the economy and the society as well as the survival of humanity in the long run. From this perspective, this attempt is definitely sustainable for the welfare of humanity.
Also, graphene is able to carry electrical current with almost 100% efficiency which is beneficial and sustainable in the long run.
Every electrical gadgets and wire we use nowadays have something called internal resistance within it. This means that the flow of electricity (or current) is reduced due to this resistance, and most of them are not fully efficient. According to the research conducted by the teams in Massachusetts institute of technology in 2018, they observed that when stacking two sheets of graphene at an angle of 1.1 degrees, the structure can become either an insulator, completely blocking current, or a superconductor, able to let current fly without any resistance.
The special thing about this research is that this conduction can happen even at room temperature, which means we can use them in our daily lives in the future. In fact, the electricity we use now is all transferred from the power supply in a power station which would take a long distance to travel, and some of the energies are lost on the way due to the resistance. If graphene wire can be implemented and be produced in a mass-quantity, that means there would be no loss while travelling and electricity would be much cheaper. From this perspective, we would be using the best out of the resources we have.
We make electricity from burning fuels. We use electricity from this, and this is very eco-unfriendly and inefficient. At least until we can fully adopt alternatives to petroleum in our daily lives, we must start to implement graphene wires which can be efficient and helpful in the long run. As an example, Samsung has recently made a graphene battery in a similar concept that has faster-charging speed and has a higher capacity.
It is known that the graphene battery made can fully charge within 12 minutes and has a 45% higher capacity and lasts much longer as there is no resistance.
If we imagine our near-future with a majority of electrical gadgets and wires made out of graphene, this would significantly reduce the cost of electricity and would enable electricity to be provided almost everywhere on our planet with a lower cost which would reduce dependence on fire for light at night for some regions.
From this point of view, making electrical materials from graphene would reduce the cost of living for us with a reduced price of electricity and reduced the cost of production for the industry which would further reduce the cost of these products once we purchase them and hence with revolutionized energy transmission that would clearly change our lives in the long run. Furthermore, graphene can be handled usefully when it comes to Artificial Photosynthesis. Our concerns about rising in the level of carbon dioxide in the air could be solved by planting a large number of trees as it undergoes the process of photosynthesis in absorbing carbon dioxide and emitting oxygen. However, it incurs high costs and time in planting trees and conserving them.
However, this artificial photosynthesis can solve all of the issues above.
Artificial photosynthesis is a process that converts carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and hydrocarbon fuels requiring sunlight as the source of energy on the photoelectrochemical cell. With the use of graphene as a small layer attached above the cell in a perovskite manner, it is observed that it detects harmful gases like nitrogen oxides and carbon oxides (CO and CO2) with higher sensitivity and converting them into useful energy according to Rice University, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia and Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology. They also claim that this graphene-based photocatalysis could improve the photoelectrochemical cell system with the highest available efficiency in converting carbon dioxide and sunlight into formic acid which can later be catalyzed and produce oxygen, methanol, and ethanol. This technology is not only useful in converting carbon dioxide into oxygen that causes global warming but is also useful in producing useful energy fuels like methanol and ethanol, which can be stored in a separate tank. Even though the efficiency of all these processes varies from 6.7% all the way to 25%, such development is eco-friendly and sustainable in the long run in economic and ecological aspects. Especially with the help of graphene catalysis, which has one of the highest efficiency as of yet, scientists are developing this module each day until it is fully applicable.
Our Earth has limited land and limited resources. If the population rises at this trend along with the rise in depletion of all these scarce resources, our Earth may find it inevitable to face serious consequences. The only choice we have is to strive for the development of sustainable technologies that can mitigate all these catastrophes. Water purification, superconductor, and artificial photosynthesis seem to be a reasonable solution in either slowing down the effects of tragic consequences or be a long-run solution to the conventional use of our scarce resources. All of it requires graphene to function effectively and efficiently, as like how scientists in KRICT recently found a method called electrochemical stripping process to produce graphene in a powder form in mass-quantity with low price, implementation of all these sustainable developments are no longer fictional and can happen soon. From this in mind, sustainable development with graphene is a revolution to our convention and would definitely change the way we live.
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