Main content

Global Business: Graphene

Peter Day visits the newly opened the National Graphene Institute in Manchester to discover how this wonder material - discovered ten years ago - can be used in the future.

It would take an elephant balanced on the tip of a pencil to break through a sheet of graphene the thickness cling film. That's the description those promoting this new wonder material like to use to illustrate the strength of graphene.
The atomic material was isolated by two scientists at Manchester University in 2004. Now, just over a decade and one Nobel prize later, Peter Day visits the newly opened the National Graphene Institute. Its aim is to bring business and science together, to develop potential future uses for graphene. Will this strategy succeed where Britain鈥檚 past attempts to spin out scientific discoveries have not?

Producer: Sandra Kanthal

Release date:

Available now

27 minutes

Podcast