Graphene is mostly hype at this point. Products that advertise graphene may be good but it's not necessarily because they have graphene in them.
Get a product that has a good reputation regardless of whether it has graphene or not.
I'll go along w/ this.
Plenty of folks saying it’s nonsense and taking it to task based upon wording (Graphene Coating, Graphene-Infused Coating, Graphene Ceramic Coating, etc.) and the suspect ability to currently actually produce a true GRAPHENE COATING.
I wasn’t around when coatings came around, touting such nonsense as “Diamond-Infused 10h Hardness” and similar “9H hardness, over twice as hard as your clearcoat” claims (the latter while being technically correct, in reality proves to pretty close to functionally irrelevant…”This really soft pillow is harder than that really soft pillow”) so dunno if the backlash was similar but it’s quite interesting nonetheless. I dunno, ain’t no scientist but it is all currently quite intriguing to me.
I had one of the first coatings to infuse graphene on my daily from May 2019 thru August 2020 (16k miles) and had another on my daily driver from September 2020 thru April 2021. Frankly, whether or not it says graphene on the label is of no matter to me, the coating in the bottle either works for me and my specific needs or it doesn’t. The 1st graphene product was a great coating overall, especially if you like slickness and high water contact angle entertainment. Didn’t meet my needs in the end but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad product at all, rather that it’s just not a great product FOR ME. Time will tell with graphene, I guess.
Blog Post:
Coating Chemistries, and Differentiating Marketing Terms from Actual Chemistry
Rag Company Q & A w/ Gtechniq; 46 minutes in the topic of Graphene comes up:
ASK Us About Detailing & Cars w/ GTECHNIQ! | Q&A Thursday #81 | August 6th, 2020 - YouTube
Pan the Organizer:
EXCLUSIVE interview with B&B Blending about graphene coatings and detailing products! - YouTube
Generally not a fan of Pan but this is kinda interesting. Notable re: graphene is the mention that while graphene will play some minor role in water spot reduction in a thermal sense, it is so minor as to be functionally irrelevant. He goes on to explain the reduced water spotting potential via an interesting ‘brick & mortar’ analogy.
A little bit from Alfred Yow, the mind/chemist behind one of the first graphene coatings (and the one I had on my car 1st). Kinda clarifies the role of the Reduced Graphene Oxide component in the coatings. From a Facebook post regarding graphene coatings. Seems like a bit of a ‘helper’ to the PDMS portion of the formulation:
To add on some answers to the article on Graphene,
The polymer used in our product, PDMS has very low thermal conductivity, absorbing less heat when exposed. And if heat has been absorbed, the better dissipation and thermal conductivity ability of reduced Graphene Oxide (rGO) will help to negate. What we do not want is all that heat absorbed to be trapped. To say it simply, this is a case of using rGO to reduce the insulation (keeping heat) properties of PDMS.
(We) have (sic) never touted using flames in any of our tests or marketing materials. This serves no purpose to demonstrate any capability of our coatings. We are not making fire-proof/retardant materials. And again, we are not touting thermal insulation as a beneficial property, we are trying to negate insulation.
Water repellent capabilities do not come from the use of rGO and can be seen in our marketing materials and information. A very high polymer (PDMS) content is used to achieve the better water-repellent effects. The polymer has been functionalized to provide much better water repellent capabilities.
I think it’s gonna take some time to figure all of this out re: graphene. Many mfg’s have released products w graphene as part of their formulations but perhaps more telling are those mfg’s who haven’t; CarPro, Gyeon, Feynlab, Optimum and Gtechniq, some of whom have openly questioned the value of graphene given its manufacturing limitations at this time.
The primary ‘optimistic benefit’ of graphene as it’s currently marketed is the potential reduction in water spotting due to its ability to reduce surface temps; occasional mentions of graphene’s toughness is tossed about but that seems to be a secondary point. Any visible performance benefits such as slickness, water behavior and similar are (as Albert Yow explains it) not due to graphene at all so, well…I dunno (again)
Will be fun to watch but not convinced that it is really any kind of ‘revolution’ given my personal experience with it. I guess that could change in future…or not.
What I get from all of this is:
- Current technology does not allow for any fundamentally significant level of Graphene to be incorporated into a coating.
- Any real or perceived benefits of a graphene coating have very little (if anything) to do with any trace amount of graphene in it.
- The functional foundation of any graphene coating is basically the same as a ceramic, likely Siloxane/Polysiloxane/Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) or Polysilazanes.
So if we bake a ‘Graphene Coating Cake’ the cake batter itself is the same as if we baked a ‘Ceramic Coating Cake’ and the graphene in the cake is not significant enough to even be considered the frosting on the cake but rather merely the handful of ‘sprinkles’ on top of the frosting on top of the cake. Maybe.
I kinda view it as using a ceramic coating that for some reason has an extra word on the label, and merely taking up space on that label is likely the greatest visible contribution ‘graphene’ *currently* makes to the overall satisfaction. That said, given all other factors being equal w/ any particular ‘graphene’ coating vs a favored ceramic, perhaps look at it like the oft-debated use of a foam cannon…it doesn’t hurt and maybe, just maybe, it would help to have the graphene in there…IF the positive aspects of it (real or perceived) fit your particular situation. Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances!
Methinks just because it says `graphene` on the label doesn’t make it a bad product but perhaps merely a questionably marketed one. The 1st graphene coating I had on my car was very good overall, had some great attributes…but not due to the graphene IMO. That aspect of it (graphene and waterspots) didn`t pan out but it was otherwise a solid performer, quite good actually. The 2nd didn’t make it thru Winter but I question if I gooned up the application or if the bottle was bad after sitting on shelf for 3 months :shrug:
And for me, that`s what is kinda unfortunate aside from a marketing perspective, about the current graphene landscape; sensationalist marketing is gonna drag down some otherwise good products just because they have the world `graphene` on the label. 'Atomic Graphene', anyone?
If I had a vehicle that better fit the strengths of the 1st graphene coating I used, I would not hesitate to use it again, not because it said `graphene` on it but because it worked exceptionally well in areas that have nothing to do with the currently reported benefits of graphene.
One item of note (or maybe just an interesting ‘thing’ is that after letting a 75% empty bottle of the 1st (and 2nd) Graphene Coating sit undisturbed on the shelf for a few months, the ?graphene? settled out to the bottom of the bottle. Was quite obvious w a dark, bottom layer of ?graphene? with clear liquid on top; I know I took a picture of it but I just can’t find it. What does that say about, well, anything? I dunno but perhaps worth mentioning. Figr’d “Well, I can’t see it from my house…” so I shook it up for a minute or two and applied to the hood of a fleet truck at work. For the month or 2 I watched it, it performed ‘normally’.
Do some research and find a coating that appears to meet your needs. If it says graphene in the label, fine; if it says ceramic on the label, that’s fine too.
Personally I think graphene technology doesn’t currently exist to take advantage of the intrinsic benefits of graphene but that doesn’t mean a graphene coating is ‘bad’ in any way, shape or form. I’ve tried a boxload of ceramics and a few graphene coatings as well. Some of the graphene products ate some of the ceramics for lunch and vice-versa.
Pick what you believe to be the best coating for you and ignore the words on the label. Heck, one of the coatings I tried last Winter and is currently doing *very* well apparently has graphene in it but the mfg downplays that (The Guz pointed that fact out to me cuz he actually read the back of the box...me, not so much :lol: )
Some say “Graphene is nonsense” but then again anyone who has used a ceramic that claims “Diamond-Infused 10h hardness” knows that the hardness ‘thing’ is pretty much nonsense as well so I guess at this point graphene AND ceramics have their own ‘extension of reality’ claims attached to them.
I’m neither a scientist, nor a professional detailer and am quite often wrong more frequently than I am right right so take all of the above with a large grain of salt, the view from the cheap seats as it were. Like the guy says, “Find something you like and use it often”…regardless of what it says on the label.