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Have we done this already?
"Our research establishes graphene as the strongest material ever measured, some 200 times stronger than structural steel," mechanical engineering professor James Hone, of Columbia University, said in a statement.
"It would take an elephant, balanced on a pencil, to break through a sheet of graphene the thickness of Saran Wrap [cling film]."......
Much has been made of graphene's potential. It can be used for anything from composite materials - like how carbon-fibre is used currently - to electronics.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9491789.stm
This article is pretty interesting too, especially the bit about capacitors for renewable energy.
Is this being over-hyped, or is it really as potentially revolutionary as it sounds?
Both probably - it's early days.
There was a lot of raised eyebrows when Geim and Novoselov won the Nobel prize for it. Very unusual for the Nobel committee to recognise something so young and unproven. If it achieves one hundredth of the proposed applications then it will have been a worthy award, but there's a risk that it will just be a curiosity in 20 years time.
Also doesn't seem a million miles away from carbon nanotubes (graphene is an 'un-rolled' version), which are widely studied. It's not my field, though.
it's interesting - but that's it for now.
it'll be more interesting when someone works out how to make it on an industrial scale.
From the Telegraph:
Graphite consists of weakly bonded layers of graphene, which is itself comprised of carbon atoms arranged in linked hexagons, measuring just one atom thick and [b]therefore having just two dimensions[/b].
[img] 
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THE DIMENSIONAL QUALITIES OF MATTER DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!
It is the carbon version of nanoclays. Lots of potential uses for high aspect ratio nanopartciles. CNTs are very hyped and I have used them but don't really like them. Round partcile nanoparticles have uses but flat ones also have their place. Have a research proposal underway at the moment which I hope to use graphene.
PS you will still need a matrix - ie epoxy and you would want continuous lengths of material so graphene may be useful as an addition but I don't see carbon fibre being replaced any time soon.
So as I suspected - somewhere in between massively overhyped and revolutionary. Cheers folks.
Could be quite exciting to see what happens with it.