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Graphene: The Game-Changing Material of the Future

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Technology is only as good as the materials it is made from.

Much of the modern information era would not be possible without silicon and Moore’s Law, and electric cars would be much less viable without recent advances in the material science behind lithium-ion batteries.

That’s why graphene, a two-dimensional supermaterial made from carbon, is so exciting. It’s harder than diamonds, 300x stronger than steel, flexible, transparent, and a better conductor than copper (by about 1,000x).

If it lives up to its potential, graphene could revolutionize everything from computers to energy storage.

Graphene: Is It the Next Wonder Material?

The following infographic comes to us from 911Metallurgist, and it breaks down the incredible properties and potential applications of graphene.

Graphene: The Game-Changing Material of the Future

While the properties and applications of graphene are extremely enticing, there has one big traditional challenge with graphene: the cost of getting it.

The Ever-Changing Graphene Price

As you can imagine, synthesizing a material that is one atom thick is a process that has some major limitations. Since a sheet of graphene 1 mm thick (1/32 of an inch) requires three million layers of atoms, graphene has been quite cost-prohibitive to produce in large amounts.

Back in 2013, Nature reported that one micrometer-sized flake of graphene costed more than $1,000, which made graphene one of the most expensive materials on Earth. However, there has been quite some progress in this field since then, as scientists search for the “Holy Grail” in scaling graphene production processes.

By the end of 2015, Deloitte estimated that the market price per gram was close to $100. And today, graphene can now be ordered straight from a supplier like Graphenea, where multiple products are offered online ranging from graphene oxide (water dispersion) to monolayer graphene on silicon wafers.

One producer, NanoXplore, even estimates that graphene is now down to a cost of $0.10 per gram for good quality graphene, though this excludes graphene created through a CVD process (recognized as the highest level of quality available for bulk graphene).

The following graphic from Nature (2014) shows some methods for graphene production – though it should be noted that this is a quickly-changing discipline.

Graphene Production

As the price of graphene trends down at an impressive rate, its applications will continue to grow. However, for graphene to be a true game-changer, it will have to be integrated into the supply chains of manufacturers, which will still take multiple years to accomplish.

Once graphene has “real world” applications, we’ll be able to see what can be made possible on a grander scale.

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Charted: The Jobs Most Impacted by AI

We visualized the results of an analysis by the World Economic Forum, which uncovered the jobs most impacted by AI.

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Charted: The Jobs Most Impacted by AI

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Large language models (LLMs) and other generative AI tools haven’t been around for very long, but they’re expected to have far-reaching impacts on the way people do their jobs. With this in mind, researchers have already begun studying the potential impacts of this transformative technology.

In this graphic, we’ve visualized the results of a World Economic Forum report, which estimated how different job departments will be exposed to AI disruption.

Data and Methodology

To identify the job departments most impacted by AI, researchers assessed over 19,000 occupational tasks (e.g. reading documents) to determine if they relied on language. If a task was deemed language-based, it was then determined how much human involvement was needed to complete that task.

With this analysis, researchers were then able to estimate how AI would impact different occupational groups.

DepartmentLarge impact (%)Small impact (%)No impact (%)
IT73261
Finance70219
Customer Sales671617
Operations651817
HR57412
Marketing56413
Legal46504
Supply Chain431839

In our graphic, large impact refers to tasks that will be fully automated or significantly altered by AI technologies. Small impact refers to tasks that have a lesser potential for disruption.

Where AI will make the biggest impact

Jobs in information technology (IT) and finance have the highest share of tasks expected to be largely impacted by AI.

Within IT, tasks that are expected to be automated include software quality assurance and customer support. On the finance side, researchers believe that AI could be significantly useful for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing.

Still interested in AI? Check out this graphic which ranked the most commonly used AI tools in 2023.

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