Nanomaterials: The Future for Computing Hardware

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As of the turn of the century, the demand for new innovative forms of technology has skyrocketed, giving everyone the desire to want the next generation of several products. This, however, comes at a price since more, and more devices have to be made more precious metals are slowly becoming very scarce, and difficult to find.

Due to this scarcity of precious metals such as tin, silver, and gold researchers have been trying to find other/cheaper alternatives as a substitute for these precious metals to be used in electronics. A new finding by Rickard Arvidsson and Björn Sandén at the Chalmers University of Technology shows the application of using carbon nanomaterials- mainly graphene- as the best substitute for the future of internal electronic hardware.

The research shows, that these Graphene nanomaterials have similar properties such as “conductivity and strength”, and will be able to “replace up to fourteen different metals” found in electronics. Such metals that are being looked at to be replaced are:

  • Indium
  • Gallium
  • Beryllium
  • Silver

Which are widely used in “capacitors, cables, thin-screens, etc.”

Impact on the environment:

By replacing rare earth metals with nanomaterials, the impact on the environment will also be greatly reduced. Even though nanomaterials are very new, and there is little research done on their effects on the environment; the use nanomaterials look to have less of an impact on the environment, since the method of extracting rare earth metals would be eliminated to a certain degree.

Impact on the Market:

Carbon is one of the most commonly available materials to find on earth. By replacing metals such as gold and silver to carbon the price of creating devices such as capacitors, and cables would begin to decline. As demand for these types of hardware continues to increase because the materials are more readily available the cost will begin drop at an incredible pace. This will result in future technologies to cost a fraction of what they currently cost.

The more nanomaterials are researched, the more possibility of them replacing every aspect of technology that we currently have becomes reality. This new frontier, regarding the substitute of precious metals, will undoubtedly become a boon to the future of every society on earth by satisfying both the market and environment.

Author: Angel Veloz, Sabre88 LLC

Editor’s note: Original Sources

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170919091029.htm