Leading the way is a fascinating material called graphene.
Graphene is a thin sheet of carbon atoms — the same element in diamonds and coal — and was the first two-dimensional substance ever created, meaning it’s one-atom thick, or about one million times thinner than a human hair.
Despite its minuscule size, graphene has a grand portfolio of wondrous properties. For instance, it’s 1,000 times stronger than steel, yet 1,000 times lighter than paper. And it’s significantly more electrically conductive than silicon, the substance we use in computer circuits.
Since graphene was first discovered in 2004, hundreds of researchers around the world have begun studying its qualities, which have the potential to revolutionise the world.
An end to global water scarcity
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Roughly 783 million peoplearound the world don't have access to clean drinking water, but graphene could change that. Last March, a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory announcedthat they had developed a porous sheet, or membrane, of graphene that could easily and efficiently remove salt from saltwater, a process called desalination.
Traditionally, water could never pass through a sheet of graphene because the mesh that makes up this material is too tightly knit together, which gives the material its amazing strength.
That's where the pores come in: The team punched holes into the graphene that were large enough to let water molecules through but small enough to block the larger salt molecules. When put to the test, their graphene membrane rejected nearly 100% of the salt molecules.
