Some graphene firms have reaped its potential but others are struggling
19 comments
·October 13, 2025theshrike79
I was studying an advanced degree at a school ~10 years ago and one of the teachers was "a bit" into graphene and they had done all kinds of cool stuff with it.
One example was a floor material for care homes that could detect pressure in a 2D sense, so the floor itself could detect "fall events" and track movement + gait etc.
And I think they had a prototype of a similar thing in Australia that weighed all trucks coming and going from a mine just under the road they drove, no need to stop on weighing stations.
No idea where that went.
Nowadays we'd do the fall detection with either a wrist device (any Apple Watch can do this) or cameras + "AI" detection. The floor is a lot more privacy preserving though, it only detected shapes and pressure.
jakedata
There are two distinct use cases spelled out in this article. Electronic and photonic technology incorporating graphene to improve performance and efficiency and "we added graphene to stuff". Graphene cement, graphene carbon fibre - 3000 tons of graphene expected from one company in 2026.
Try not to breathe any, studies are still pending but that stuff gets everywhere.
mapt
100 years ago, asbestos was the new wonder material, and "We added asbestos to stuff" was a very common marketing bullet point for building materials. It found its way into flooring, mastic, the predecessors to drywall, ceiling texture, insulation, and anything and everything used near a combustion appliance.
Literally just, take a process that used to use sand or horsehair or whatever filler, and add a significant portion by mass of asbestos powder instead.
gcanyon
I wonder if there are studies on the lives saved by asbestos's fireproofing feature vs. cost by its lung-disease-causing feature.
Answering my own question: the WHO estimates it costs 200K lives per year. No estimates on the other side, but that's a big number to overcome...
bn-l
I’m not sure if it’s still the case but I searched of alibaba once and found huge rolls of asbestos for sale and massive supply capacity numbers. It was pretty shocking.
withinboredom
"Lets remove carbon from the atmosphere" ... humanity proceeds to invent ways to put more carbon in the atmosphere.
withinboredom
It's weird that this morning, it was getting upvotes, but in the afternoon, it is getting downvotes. Did something happen?
rkomorn
I'd look at what timezones were hitting 8-9am when downvotes started.
alansaber
We peaked at graphene for disposable lab gloves
chromehearts
I'll be 6 feet under, the day graphene hits the market - possibly in a graphene coffin
jrvarela56
The AI of chemical engineering/material science?
Mengkudulangsat
If you are doing a lot of miniature photographies, black paints / fabrics made with graphene are great for lighboxes.
Musou black is what I tried.
marcosfelt
It's also worth noting how insular and toxic some parts of the graphene world can be.
SideburnsOfDoom
Does this mean that the people are bad for your mental health, or that the substance is bad for your physical health? I could believe either.
marcosfelt
More the people!
fnord77
are the graphene clothing products (like graphene-x) just gimmicks?
RIP Robert Murray-Smith, who decided to move on recently due to health and grief
their Making Graphene and Graphene Oxide playlist;
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbQqm4rNo6243e69xp-ZPUkYD...
a more recent 30m omnibus of a number of their graphene videos;
https://youtu.be/iqOCtEsMWjs
finishing with blood and milk and eggs!
their last video;
https://youtu.be/_RSiVrCsVH4
and after;
https://youtu.be/GhramXiUrY4
cheers mate :')