Concrete may have found it's killer app in graphene, the lightest ever synthetic material -- but it's still some ways away from replacing metal, and scientists are well aware of that. We've seen some incredible metals, but to be a champion at a major championships, even something like tungsten would likely be tough to beat. It's tough to beat all the other materials out there, too -- stainless steel, titanium, nickel, and even carbon. All are lightweight, but none are purer or tougher than tungsten. Still, there's also talk of a graphene tungsten -- an amazing material that could be worth even more than tungsten, yet we're a long way away from that, considering graphene is made by taking graphite and stripping the sheets into single sheets -- it's currently being produced using high energy laser pulses. It's not just that it's never been done -- scientists haven't even been able to successfully make a sample of it that lasts more than a few seconds. It's still basically a theoretical material that's only just now becoming a possibility. That's the beauty of being able to recycle though. If graphene is in the race, it's got a chance to win, and if not, there are plenty more materials out there ready to try out. So while some are still dreaming of pure tungsten, there's no reason why someone can't try to make graphene from recycled tungsten, or something else, either. A lot of it depends on the material. We've used aluminum in the past, and we were happy with that choice, but if the aluminum is from cans that already went through the whole manufacturing process, like the one in your recycling bin, it's even better than new, because we know the exact chemical and physical makeup. But what if you used something that was never even going to make it through quality control, or your recycling wasn't even the first time the material was processed? Then it's a little less ideal. And then there's things that may have been recycled, but aren't really the right quality to make into an aluminum object. There's an exception to this, too. In 2014, scientists from the Universidade do Minho, Portugal, examined the effects of recycled glass on recycled aluminum using recycled glass-cannibalized scraps from automotive and building industry. With a little re-processing and some thermochemical treatment, they were able to turn aluminum into glass, a process with tremendous potential when you consider the amount of recycled aluminum just going through the trash every year, the amount of reusable bottles and soda cans, not to mention the millions of pounds of scrap aluminum that's already on the market. And when it comes to pure metals, steel is another major contender, as it's in many ways a more sustainable material. Recycled steel isn't going to replace our current manufactured steel in the market anytime soon, but it's a good sign that metals are getting recycled at all, and, as mentioned before, it's better than reusable materials -- reusable materials get old and break. Then there's graphene. We may never find a use for it in its pure form, but there's at least the possibility of producing it from materials that have been more easily recycled that it can be used in, like tungsten and aluminum. So even if the best recycled metal turns out to be one you can't see, it doesn't mean it isn't important. It means more materials are being recycled, and that's a good thing for the environment. Images: Shutterstock, Wikimedia Commons, Tymczyszyn's Lab. *We've had to slightly update this story. See below for an update: Update: In the weeks after publishing this story, it's become clear that some scientists are doing just this. Some researchers have been successful at turning used metals and alloys into materials with certain properties. Some of these scientists are working in the United Kingdom, and I haven't been able to confirm whether the researchers are using the same methods as those scientists who made graphene from recycled carbon. When I was writing this piece, we knew that a team of researchers at Cambridge University had created graphene from tungsten. We had no idea whether this was new or not, nor the methods used. The only reason I knew about them was that someone told me about it. I didn't get confirmation one way or another. Since then, thanks to a comment left on Reddit, I was pointed to a paper