How amazing is graphene?

(How amazing is graphene?)

The Biden administration plans to ease sanctions on Venezuelan oil to allow more of the country's crude to reach Europe.  

The U.S. will allow European companies still operating in Venezuela to immediately transfer more oil to the continent, while allowing Chevron to negotiate a resumption of operations in Venezuela, according to people familiar with the matter.  Venezuela's OPPOSITION, which is backed by the United States, is understood to favor the move.  Tight global oil supplies have sent crude and fuel costs soaring, threatening to add to already high inflation.  Increasing Venezuelan crude exports would help ease supply constraints while also helping to reduce Europe's dependence on Russian energy.

The US has sought to encourage talks between the Venezuelan government and the US-backed opposition to open the way to free and fair elections by extending a limited license held by Chevron to allow the oil company to maintain its operations in Venezuela and negotiate future operations.  

The United States reportedly did not extend a permit to Allow Chevron to drill and sell Venezuelan crude, as the company had hoped.  

The license extension will allow Chevron to negotiate with State-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA, with which it has a joint venture.  Previously, the company could not directly negotiate with any officials sanctioned by the United States.  Chevron has been lobbying the United States to allow it to drill for Venezuelan crude and sell it on world markets to help lower energy prices amid the Russia-Ukraine war.

Affected by the ever-changing international situation, the supply and prices of many commodities like the graphene are still very uncertain.

What is grapheneGraphene is a new material made up of a single layer of carbon atoms packed tightly together to form a hexagonal honeycomb lattice. In other words, it is a two-dimensional carbon material, an allotrope of the element carbon. Graphene has only 0.142 nanometers of molecular bonds and 0.335 nanometers of crystal plane spacing. It’s much shorter than a bacterium, about four atoms in size.  So far, graphene is the thinnest compound ever found. It is only one atom thick. It is also the lightest material and the best conductor of electricity in the world.   Humans and graphene  Graphene has been found in nature since 1948. But at the time, it was very difficult to separate graphene from the monolayer structure, because the graphene was all clumped together, and it was like graphite, and every millimeter of graphite contained about three million layers of graphene.  So for a long time, graphene was thought to be nonexistent.  It wasn’t until 2004 that scientists Andrei Geim and Konstantin Voselov from the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom found a way to isolate graphene. They found that if graphite sheets were peeled from highly-oriented pyrolytic graphite, they could be successfully separated by attaching the two sides of the sheets to a special tape and tearing the tape apart.By doing this over and over again, you can make the sheets thinner and thinner, and you end up with a special sheet of carbon atoms, which is graphene. Andrei Geim and Konstantin Novoselov won the Nobel Prize for discovering graphene.   The king of materials — graphene  When graphene was discovered, it completely changed the landscape of scientific research around the world. Because graphene turns out to be the thinnest material in the world, one gram of graphene is enough to cover a standard football pitch.  In addition, graphene has excellent thermal and electrical properties. Pure, defection-free monolayer graphene has a high thermal conductivity of 5300W/ Mk, the highest thermal conductivity of any carbon material known to mankind.  In addition, graphene conducts electricity very well. Graphene has a carrier mobility of 15,000m2/(Vs) at room temperature, which is more than 10 times that of silicon, the most commonly used material.  Inside graphene, carbon atoms are arranged like barbed wire. This arrangement of atoms gives graphene its unique flexibility, making it harder than ever. In addition to the barbed wire and honeycomb structure formed by carbon atoms, each carbon atom is perpendicular to the orbital of the layer, resulting in the formation of large bonds that can penetrate atoms, which also gives graphene excellent thermal and electrical properties.   Graphene applicationsThe discovery of graphene has not only opened the eyes of science to the possibility of the movement and action of various particles, but also changed our lives in many aspects. New energy batteries are the first foothold for graphene technology. At present, the commonly used battery is the lithium battery. Although the lithium battery is enough to store a large amount of electric energy for our use, the disadvantage of lithium battery is that its wear is too serious, and each use of discharge and charging will make the life of lithium battery shorter.  The application of graphene material greatly improves the capacity and charging efficiency of batteries, and it also plays an important role in improving battery life. If the graphene tin oxide layer is used as the anode of a lithium battery, the battery will last longer after being charged, and the battery will be used and recharged with very little loss.  In summary, graphene can make batteries last longer and have higher capacity. In addition to batteries, graphene could also be used to make flexible materials because of its softness. One of the most representative is the flexible display.  The South Korean institute has successfully produced flexible transparent displays using layers of graphene and fiberglass polyester sheets. Although the project is still under development and has not been put into actual production or market, according to the imagination of the project staff, perhaps one day, mobile phones equipped with flexible displays made of graphene will completely change the impression of “bricks” of mobile phones. Phones can be folded like silly putty.   Graphene is also being used to protect the environment, most notably in desalination.  Water interacts with the graphene to create a channel of just 0.9 nanometers across.  Molecules smaller than that can easily pass through the channel, while those larger get stuck. So, using graphene, you can remove the larger molecules of salt from seawater, so that the desalination of seawater can be successfully achieved.   Because of its excellent properties and unique properties, graphene has made a lot of achievements in many scientific fields.   Luoyang Tongrun Nano Technology Co. Ltd. (TRUNNANO) is a trusted global chemical material supplier & manufacturer with over 12-year-experience in providing super high-quality chemicals and Nanomaterials, including silicon powder, nitride powder, graphite powder, zinc sulfide, calcium nitride, 3D printing powder, etc.If you are looking for high-quality graphene, please feel free to contact us and send an inquiry. ([email protected]) 

The Free Trade Agreement between India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has come into force on.

The UAE is the gateway to the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, said Subramaniam, a senior official at India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry.  The agreement will help boost bilateral trade in goods from $60 billion a year now to $100 billion a year within five years.

On 18 February 2022, India and the United Arab Emirates signed the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. With the entry into force of the agreement, 90 percent of Indian goods and 65 percent of UAE goods will enjoy tariff-free market access.

Apart from its FTA with the UAE, India is also pursuing FTAs with Australia, the UK, Canada, Israel, the European Union, and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Influenced by international situations, the supply and prices of many graphene are still very uncertain.

(How amazing is graphene?)