
Graphene is likely to cause negative environmental impacts if spilled - WestCoastJustin
http://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/22044
======
Cthulhu_
At least it's a risk that can be assessed before it's put into wide-scale
production and use; in the case of asbestos, it was everywhere when it was
discovered to be harmful.

Somehow I doubt graphene and nanomaterials are going to be widely used in
insulation and paneling. Graphene if it's used in CPU's will be encased in
heat sinks and whatnot, and waste can be handled accordingly. In production,
they're already processed in clean rooms with heavy filtering, so I doubt
those will be a risk.

~~~
jacquesm
A graphene based aerogel would be a fantastic material for insulation!

[http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/153063-graphene-
aerogel-i...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/153063-graphene-aerogel-is-
seven-times-lighter-than-air-can-balance-on-a-blade-of-grass)

~~~
arethuza
Wouldn't that carbon aerogel be incredibly combustible?

~~~
jacquesm
At a guess, yes (it's carbon after all), maybe we could cover it in Asbestos?

~~~
retube
it's all in the structure. diamonds are not combustable.

~~~
ctdonath
Actually, diamonds _can_ burn. Needs high temperature and high oxygen.

~~~
arethuza
I remember watching a rather splendid Open University chemistry program (the
closest we had to Khan Academy in the 1970s) when I was about 8 or 9 and they
burned up a diamond - I was _deeply_ impressed.

I think they heated it up then dropped it into liquid oxygen.

~~~
arethuza
I found this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mKqtT8J2ms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mKqtT8J2ms)

But I'm pretty sure this _isn 't_ the one I saw.

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DanBC
This feels sensible. We don't know what happens; there are reasonable
mechanisms of action that could be harmful; we have some experimental evidence
that it could be harmful.

What we need to do now is calmly investigate ways to control pollution and
toxicity, and better manage clean-up and recycling.

Modern electronics use plenty of stuff which is harmful to people and the
environment. Have a look at the e-waste dump in Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana for
an example of terrible consequences (human and environmental) of our poor
handling of e-waste.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its data but not information. What is the rate graphene naturally occurs? How
much of a spill is significant? Its largely impossible to guess if this
research is at all important without knowing the context.

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jacquesm
One of the worries around graphene and other nano materials is that we'll see
a re-run of the asbestos disaster. Once thought to be a fantastic material
that saw widespread adoption because of its useful properties asbestos became
a pariah material once the link with lungcancer was made.

Asbestos and graphene have some elements in common (mostly: very thin needle
like particles), which could lead to similar trouble (lungcancer).

see
[http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2012/February/graphen...](http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2012/February/graphene-
inhaled-lungs.asp)

Nanomaterials have their own particular set of problems when it comes to the
environmental impact.

~~~
DanBC
Yet we let very many people die each year from the very small particles
emitted by vehicle exhausts.

About 5,000 people in the UK die each year from vehicle pollution.

[http://bbc.co.uk/news/science-
environment-17704116](http://bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17704116)

~~~
CalRobert
A fair point, but people apparently don't care. It shocks me how people stress
about their cell phone giving them cancer (or windmills giving them headaches,
supposedly) while willingly inhaling automobile exhaust and complaining that
attempts to address this are somehow impinging upon their freedom.

~~~
tormeh
It's because, for many, the car represents freedom. As in, freedom to go
wherever they want. To not rely on someone else's transport. It sounds silly
to me, but apparently that's how many people think.

~~~
meepmorp
I think it's also because people think they know how to assess the risks of
cars. They think of crashes, maybe, as the primary (if not sole) risk. They
don't know of anyone who's ever died from car exhaust, apart from perhaps a
carbon monoxide suicide.

Cell phones are newer things in people's lives. There's less established
understanding of what they can do. Combined with a general fear of radiation,
and the associated risks of cancer, and it's easier to believe you'll get
cancer from a phone than from car exhaust.

~~~
andrewflnr
Think about that. Most people don't know anyone who has died from exhaust, but
almost everyone knows someone who has been involved in a crash. We might not
be sufficiently afraid of cars, but I think rating the danger of crashes above
exhaust is reasonable.

~~~
CalRobert
Most people know somebody whose emphysema, cancer, or other air-pollution
related disease was at least exacerbated by exhaust. They just don't know that
they do. This could even be you a few decades hence.

Ironically this is similar to the danger posed by low-level radiation releases
(except exhaust is far more dangerous), except everyone freaks out when their
local radiation levels are 10% above baseline, but nobody cares when local
pm2.5 levels are 20% above baseline. (They do notice at 1000%, to their
credit).

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Goopplesoft
Certainly a bad time for graphene.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7671355](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7671355)

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snowwrestler
As I understand it, the risks of nano particles are difficult to gauge in
advance because their interaction with biological systems depends in part on
their surface shape. This is different from typical understandings of chemical
toxicity, which depend primarily on composition and dosage.

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dfc
Who changed the title?

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deeviant
If graphene is toxic, that's bad, as it's a product whenever graphite based
pencils are used.

~~~
jessriedel
Any idea how much actually flakes off a pencil? Presumably the quantities are
vastly lower than if it were produced in bulk.

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morgante
Clicked this thinking it was about the real-time dashboard, mystified as to
what could be not all good about D3. [1]

[1]: [https://github.com/jondot/graphene](https://github.com/jondot/graphene)

