Back in 2018, I wrote my first article about graphene, which was characterized as a miracle material. As a refresher, in 2010, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov of the University of Manchester in the UK “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene.”

In its press release, the committee stated: “Graphene is a thin flake of carbon, just one atom thick.…As a material it is completely new—not only the thinnest ever but also the strongest. As a conductor of electricity, it performs as well as copper. As a conductor of heat, it outperforms all other known materials. It is almost completely transparent, yet so dense that not even helium, the smallest gas atom, can pass through it. Carbon, the basis of all known life on earth, has surprised us once again.”

The EU is investing big time in graphene’s future. Its Graphene Flagship Initiative, with a budget of €1 billion, is tasked with bringing together academic and industrial researchers to take graphene from the realm of academic laboratories into European society in the space of 10 years, thus generating economic growth, new jobs, and new opportunities. Kind of reminds me of “putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade.” The consortium consists of more than 150 academic and industrial research groups in 23 countries. While there is graphene research being conducted in the United States, it does not appear that there is anything at this scale or with this level of government support. It even has its own Twitter channel (@GrapheneEU) and a virtual event planned for September 22–24.