Materials
could be sitting in your driveway! Other industries, such as flexible electronics, rechargeable batteries and more, may soon leverage graphene on a truly industrial scale.” But what about the medical field? “Even for simple medical research, much less novel materials, it takes an average of 17 years to reach clinical application and practice – and graphene research only began in earnest 18 years ago”, Tour says. “Medical application of new materials is extremely difficult and time consuming, and has been hampered by struggles of graphene production and quality”. Nevertheless, he’s confident that we will begin to see graphene being used to strengthen medical composites – like bone implants.
Future expectations
Sorensen also has hopes for the future of graphene in the medical field. He has been working with organic chemist, Dr Stefan Bossmann, to transform HydroGraph’s graphene into what they call “reactive graphene”. It’s a form of graphene oxide in which the surface of HydroGraph’s multi-layer graphene is oxidised, while the in-between layers maintain their graphene integrity. Bossman has collaborated with Hawkeye Medical, Sorensen explains, who have “put protease molecules onto the surface of our graphene. These molecules can detect cancer by a fluorescent technique. It’s not graphene, per se”, he says, “it’s the
reactive graphene that allows us to attach these biomarkers to the surface of the graphene […] And once you’ve got reactive things of an organic nature, then all of organic chemistry lies at your feet. The sky’s the limit.”
As for the future of graphene, Sorensen is looking to plastics. Using graphene, he says, “we will [be able to] augment plastics to make them even stronger. And, of course, lightweight plastics are half the density or less than aluminium. So why not have plastic airplanes someday?” Tour is also optimistic about graphene strengthening existing materials. “The use of graphene as a composite additive is amazing,” he says. “For example, adding 0.1g of our flash graphene to 1kg of cement can increase its strength by 35%. This can allow for the use of less cement, one of the single largest sources of greenhouse gases. We have also tested the use of flash graphene in plastic composites, epoxy and more, with great increases in strength.”. For now, the task remains to get high-quality graphene off the ground and out into the world at scale and HydroGraph’s Breure is confident this will happen in the next few years. “We’re really at the cusp of this changing,” she says. It’s an exciting brink to be on, and one that will undoubtedly have huge ramifications in the medical field, but just how huge, remains for the innovators to imagine. ●
Composite Metal Wire for Medical Devices
Combine two or more metals or alloys into a clad metal wire "system"
that acts as one.
Medical Device Developments /
www.nsmedicaldevices.com 125
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