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2018 Eunoia

A New Material, Graphene,
Reveals the Future

Sun-Ae Kang

Have you heard about graphene1)
used to make flexible displays? These
days, it appears that graphene's use is
expanded to other industries besides
just its use in flexible displays. To learn
about these industries, we should know
about graphene.

Graphene is simply a thin layer of
graphite2) . It is an allotrope3) of the element
carbon, meaning it possesses the same
atoms, but they're arranged in a different
way. These graphene layers are better
conductors of electricity than copper
and transfer electrons 100 times faster
than silicon, which is commonly used as a semiconductor. Almost all light passes through it, so it is
transparent4) and flexible.
It got a lot of attention as a next generation material, but it was too difficult to use because of its
complicated mass production5) process. However, graphene has become easier to use thanks to a local
company Graphene Square which developed a new mass production process. It also made a bulletproof
vest6) by stacking7) 1,000 to 5,000 layers of graphene. It also published the fact that they are developing
a graphene powder called a graphene ball which could serve as a replacement for lithium8) batteries at
NanoKorea in 2018.
In this way, graphene is widely used in the electronic fields, but it also has applications in the bio fields.
For example, a joint research team from Hopkins University and Seoul National University prevented the
combination of waste proteins which cause Parkinson’s disease9) by using graphene. Moreover, Professor
Jung-beom Kim's team has developed a technique for culturing stem cells on graphene to produce stem
cells10) at a low cost without the risk of infection.
Nowadays, various industries are developing new uses for graphene. Let's all look forward to making
electronic paper, portable computers, or diseases remedy by using graphene.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

1) graphene : 그래핀 6) bulletproof vast : 방탄 조끼
2) graphite : 흑연 7) stacked : 쌓아서
3) allotrope : 동소체 (같은 원소로 되어 있으나 모양과 성질이 다른 홑원소 물질) 8) lithium : 리튬
4) transparent : 투명한 9) Parkinson's disease : 파킨슨 병
5) mass production : 대량 생산 10) stem cells : 줄기세포

23MYEONG-SHIN GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL