Dear Colleagues,
I am writing a science fiction story in which graphene is processed in forms used as today's steel is used. The mining and rolling mills will be on a large iron asteroid. The issues surrounding future production of graphene may well be a key element of my plot. I am thinking that health factors of workers could be important and so somebody has to tell the public or perhaps two planets have similar plans and markets overlap.
Any comments are most welcome. I need to talk to people with some grasp of the graphene potentials.
Dear Gloria Lee Mcmillan,
Graphene is a 2D material, meaning that you only one or few plans of carbon in z-direction (few nanometers), up to several cm in x- and y-direction.
The assembly of high number of plane (increase the z-direction, to create a bulk material) is graphite, which is basically the pencil lead. Graphite has several advantage, as dry lubricant, good conductivity, anti-corrosion, ... but it is very brittle, and cannot be easily shape as steel. To shape graphite, machining is generally used, so it cannot be used as steel or aluminum.
Regards,
Emile
Dear Colleague Emile Haye,
I appreciate this overview of the problem.
What might make graphene more usable. Even a 2-d layer on top of steel might make steel much more durable and strong--is this right?
Regards,
Gloria
Graphene cannot be used the same as steel is used in the industry. Steel is a ductile metal, which can be easily deformed to any shape and it has a large tensile strength. Graphene does not have these properties, it is a 2D material which is brittle, so it cannot be deformed. Since it is brittle, it breaks very easily.
The main application of the Graphene is in electronic devices because Graphene provides a large electron mobility leading to a very fast response of the electronic devices, such as your cell phone, computer and so on. However, steel does not have any of these applications. Therefore, they are not replacement of each other reality although they might be a good replacement for each other in a fiction story :)
Dear Colleague Mohammad Reza Zamani Kouhpanji ,
That is an important aspect of graphene you state. I don't think even in SF readers like what flies in the face of known data about a scientific or technological concept. I will have to look for a possible future alloy for steel or drop this plot option, I think.
No Dilithium 2 crystal (a al "space operas" like Star Trek, either. I could just have the material be like H. G. wells' Time Machine, a black box never delineated specifically. Or the ever-popular "brought to us by an advanced civ with materials unknown on earth."
Best regards,
Gloria McMillan
Dear Gloria,
The word steel designates a large family of iron-based metallic alloys.
There exists a very large number of steel grades (chemical compositions) and most of them can be heat treated with many subtle variations. As a result, steel products cover an extremely broad range of mechanical properties and are found in many different applications such as civil engineering, transport, energy, appliances, tools ...
Even in a single application, like automotive manufacturing for instance, a broad variety of grades are used, based on the performance/cost optimization of each component.
Consequently, it seems rather unlikely that any single material would outperform, let alone replace, all steel grades in all their applications.
Rather, one new material could outperform one steel grade in its main application. It is worth pointing out that this new material could very well be a new steel grade as many of them are constantly being developed.
Best regards,
Hugo P. Van Landeghem
Okay, then. I have another question some of you may know an answer for. How about diamagnetism as a means of powering the transport of space-produced super steels? Anybody?
Check the following reference Please.. it might's assist you in your question …
https://www.nature.com/news/the-super-materials-that-could-trump-graphene-1.17775
Gloria Lee Mcmillan ... Please share me the best answer might you get about your question" How about diamagnetism as a means of powering the transport of space-produced super steels? "
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