Despite being a million times thinner than a human hair, graphene is 200 times stronger than steel. It is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity, making it suitable for electronic circuits; it is also extremely flexible, transparent, and can be made water resistant.
The EU has a specialised graphene project, which aims to bring graphene into the market from the laboratory. It is one of Europe’s biggest ever research initiatives, coordinating over 150 academic and industrial research groups in more than 20 countries, with over 31 partnering projects. The project has estimated the market is worth €100m a year at least, and that figure could climb to €550m by 2025.
From computer chips to aerospace applications to military capabilities to new super-powerful batteries, graphene is the perfect and transformative material of the future.
However, it is proving incredibly difficult to produce graphene in industrial quantities, with researchers making a maximum of a few grams of the stuff, and quality control being poor.
So is it all just a flighty wish, and nothing real or practical? Will it ever be possible to make graphene of good enough quality in commercial quantities, or is the technology just going to stay a fairy-tale? We can perhaps draw comfort from the story of silicon, which was first isolated in 1824 by Jacob Berzelius, a Swedish chemist. The very first silicon transistor wasn’t made until 1954. And the first personal computers powered by circuits containing silicon chips weren’t seen until around 1977.
Despite graphene’s many excellent qualities, the graphene industry (which resembles a fevered worldwide gold-rush in its current state) currently does nothing for the investor’s pocked. Note, too, that the Financial Conduct Authority, the City regulator, maintains a ‘Graphene investment Scams’ warning page.
Quote Of The Day
“If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.”
Tom Stoppard
Alternative Quote Of The Day
“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?.”
George Carlin
The companies to keep an eye on.
Graphene makers don’t seem to be the best bets currently, but over the next decade or with a breakthrough things could shift.
Applied Graphene Materials specialises in producing anti-corrosion coatings, along with composites and inks. It is still lossmaking, however. Indeed, its operating losses increased in the year to the end of July, and revenue fell by a third. But it has a new CEO, which may improve matters. Other tips for promising companies include Hexcel, and Japan’s Toray Industries, both of which at least make money.
For a similar speculative punt, you could do worse than try Aixtron, a profitable German company in the same sub-sector. Aixtron came out of Aachen University in 1983 and has been investigating the use of graphene in semiconductors in association with the EU’s Graphene Partnership. Its latest machines enable it to produce single-layer graphene coatings on metal foils and wafers. It has no debt and made a pre-tax profit of €74.7m in the first three-quarters of 2019 on revenues of €184.6m.
Today’s National Day
NATIONAL WORKING PARENTS DAY!
PUBLISHERS NOTICE
“How To Beat This Crisis!”
Dear Streetwise Customer,
By any measure, the last few months have been traumatic.
I’m not going to dwell on the details – you’re already being bombarded with the negative news from all angles and it feels like there’s no escape.
You know what’s happening…but maybe you don’t know what to do about it.
The scale and duration of the health risk remains uncertain, but the economic impact is likely to be felt much more widely and be much longer lasting. Anyone running a pub, restaurant, café, bar or any other kind of hospitality or events business faces an uncertain future – as does anyone whose business relies on face to face interaction with their fellow humans. In fact this is likely to have a knock-on impact on businesses we haven’t even thought about yet.
And yet those people – just like everyone else – needs to continue making money.
They need to keep a roof over their head, food on the table and be in position to go again when all this ends and we get back to normal.
What if there was a way to make as much money as you need (and a great deal more) without leaving home – one which can not only survive the crisis we’re currently experiencing, but actually thrives from it?
If you were to design a money making strategy from scratch to take
advantage of the circumstances we’re currently experiencing, this is exactly what you’d come up with – a business where…
How do I know this is perfect for now?
Because the guy who developed it is something of a recluse.
He started self-isolating years ago before it became a thing, and has run this business from the top of a French mountain, from a remote Swedish farm and from the wilds of northern Scotland.
If you’re looking for an insurance policy that will enable you to make money without leaving home to steer you through this crisis and beyond, I can genuinely think of nothing which fits the bill more closely.
Take a look now and respond today. In every crisis, there are opportunities.
Even if you’ve looked at doing something like this before and decided against, think again. Now is the time.
Click HERE for more information
Kind Regards,
John Harrison
P.S Uncertain and volatile times are precisely when this works best.
What other opportunity can you say that about?