Improved battery technology may be an important step towards increased electrification of road transport, and may one day, through a network of on-grid EVs, help create the dreamed global storage facility for green electricity – alleviating the problems the straggling output of for instance wind and solar energy poses today.

So it was good news, two months ago, when MIT researchers said they could boost battery performance tenfold. The magic trick is implementing that newly discovered superconductor: graphene. Graphene’s virtues are not restricted to battery technology. In fact, take any piece of existing electronic technology, add a touch of the gold dust that is microscopic graphene, and you’re likely to make it better, smaller, more energy-efficient – and most of all: scientifically hip.

This week, Science published new research on a graphene implementation that even bypasses the battery: the ultracapacitor. This power source for small electronics can recharge in seconds. If built with graphene, in under 200 microseconds [will impatient consumers finally stop complaining?].

Like the improvements with batteries and ultracapacitors, this year alone, in universities and other scientific institutions thousands of different studies focus on graphene. The peer-reviewed results are gradually seeping into the scientific literature, although many more publications are to be awaited. The word graphene will most likely be hot for years to come.

Just six years ago no one would have heard of it. Moreover, anyone carrying some common chemical sense would have thought it impossible, if not theoretically, then at least practically, considered unproducible.

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