This looks like a graphene story at first glance, but it isn’t.
Graphene has two major problems: it’s tough to make, and we don’t really know what its keystone use is. High-quality graphene is made by vapor deposition, except that that’s extremely expensive, which is one reason why graphene doesn’t see wider use. But we’re inching toward better techniques for studying and using graphene. Recently scientists discovered a new way of using one derivative form of graphene called graphene oxide, and beyond its use in research it could see a lot of use in commercial applications. It turns out graphene oxide makes a pretty great filter for desalinating water. And it’s all because of physical chemistry.
Graphene oxide comes in sheets, like sheets of graphene. That’s about where the similarities end. Where graphene has (ideally) a perfectly regular, one-atom-thick structure of adjoining benzene rings, graphene oxide is several layers thick. Graphene oxide is also loaded with oxygen — hence the oxide — and that gives it some very different chemical properties than regular graphene, which is pure carbon.
Graphene is a great conductor, if you can make it behave. But that isn’t what graphene oxide does best. In somewhat the same way as oxidation rusts metal, making it a less effective conductor, graphene oxide isn’t necessarily what we’re after in terms of applications for the semiconductor industry. It just isn’t quite as compelling as graphene, or even reduced graphite oxide. No, graphene oxide has a different set of talents.
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