Graphene batteries: Introduction and Market News - Page 26

Bedimensional has received €18 million to promote their main goal – discover new applications of graphene and related materials in consumer products. The investment was made by Italian 'Pellan Group,' specialized in groundbreaking technical materials.

Bedimensional is an Associated Member of the Graphene Flagship, and is part of a network of companies associated to the Graphene Flagship developing new solutions in the field of composites for energy harvest and storage, such as batteries, super capacitors and solar cells, as well as foster the development of new composite materials, some of which are already available on the market.

Australian advanced materials technology company, Talga Resources, recently announced positive initial test results from the development of its graphene silicon lithium-ion anode in the UK.

The results are the first under Talga’s UK Government-funded Safevolt project - a Talga-led program run in conjunction with consortia partners, Johnson Matthey, the University of Cambridge and manufacturing research group, TWI.

Today we published new versions of all our graphene market reports. Graphene-Info provides comprehensive niche graphene market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about these niche markets. The reports are now updated to October 2018.

The Graphene Batteries Market Report:

• The advantages using graphene batteries
• The different ways graphene can be used in batteries
• Various types of graphene materials
• What's on the market today
• Detailed specifications of some graphene-enhanced anode material
• Personal contact details into most graphene developers

The report package provides a good introduction to the graphene battery - present and future. It includes a list of all graphene companies involved with batteries and gives detailed specifications of some graphene-enhanced anode materials and contact details into most graphene developers. Read more here!

Sweden-based Graphmatech develops and produces novel graphene-based nanocomposite materials, under the Aros Graphene brand. The company recently secured an investment from ABB and Walerud Ventures, and the company's CFO, Bjorn Lindh, was kind enough to answer a few questions we had to him.

Q: Thank you for your time Bjorn. Can you give us a short introduction to Graphmatech's Aros Graphene materials, and how it differs from other graphene materials on the market?

Graphmatech has invented the novel material, Aros Graphene that keeps most of graphene's features, while making it easy to use in large industrial scales by preventing agglomeration, which is a key challenge for the use of graphene. Aros graphene is produced in powder form and can be used as additive, as coating or even in 3D-printing. The market introduction and launch of first products, filaments and thermal paste, will be introduced to the market in 2019.

Norway-based Graphene Oxide developer Abalonyx says that there is a strong interest in graphene oxide (GO) solutions in the research community, across a wide range of applications. While first industrial adoption is "on the horizon", Abalonyx estimates that industry acceptance is strongly related to cost.

Abalonyx' current production cost is around €800 per Kg (dry weight basis) - since the Company's GO is currently used by researchers and early R&D efforts. Abalonyx estimates that as production volume goes up, the price of production could reach around 22 Euro / Kg - which will make GO applicable for areas such as concrete and asphalt. The projection is based on the company's own extrapolation of today's capacity and the effect of full-automation. The cost does not include waste handling (although Abalonyx believes that it will be able to handle that at no cost). Abalonyx is currently selling its GO at €1,300 - €4,000 per Kg depending on amount and grade (€1.3 - €4 per gram).

The Graphene Flagship was launched in 2013 with the mission to take graphene and related layered materials from academic laboratories to the market, revolutionize multiple industries and create economic growth and new jobs in Europe. Five years later, the Flagship consortium has reported that it successfully completed the Core1 phase and is progressing towards more applied phases. It is reportedly on its way to achieving its objective of developing the high potential of graphene and related 2D materials to the point of having a dramatic impact on multiple industries.

The Reviewing Panel thoroughly examined the results obtained in this Core1 phase and concluded that for many topics, there has been a clear transformation of the activities, moving from individual research projects to genuine collaboration towards larger goals exactly what a Flagship project should aim for. Nearly all milestones and key performance indicators have been met, often exceeding expectations. There are numerous examples of significant scientific and/or technological achievements, with clear progress beyond the state of the art. The Work package on Photonics and Optoelectronics led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Frank Koppens was recognized as one of the closest to being brought into industrial exploitation due to its significant potential for both scientific breakthrough and innovation.

A*STAR researchers have found that incorporating organic materials into lithium ion batteries could lower their cost and make them more environmentally friendly. The team has developed an organic-based battery cathode that has significantly improved electrochemical performance compared to previous organic cathode materials. The new material is also robust, remaining stable over thousands of battery charge/discharge cycles.

An electron-deficient, rigid organic molecule called hexaazatrinaphthalene (HATN) was previously investigated as an organic cathode material for lithium ion batteries. However, its promising initial performance declined rapidly during use, because the molecule began to dissolve into the battery’s liquid electrolyte. A new cathode material, in which HATN was combined with graphene oxide in an attempt to prevent the organic material from dissolving, has now been developed by Yugen Zhang and his colleagues from the A*STAR Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology.

Versarien, the advanced materials engineering group, has announced that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with AXIA Materials to develop graphene-enhanced composite materials and smart graphene devices using both Versarien's proprietary Nanene graphene nano platelets and proprietary Graphinks graphene inks.

AXIA, based in South Korea, develops advanced thermoplastic composite material solutions under its LiteTex brand for the automotive, sports, electronics and building sectors, and produces pre-fabricated buildings under its Pixel Haus brand.

A team of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and University of California in the US, along with teams from the University of Electronic Science and Technology, Hunan University and Soochow University in China, report the design of a negatively charged graphene composite separator for the effective suppression of the polysulfide shuttling effect in Li-sulfur batteries. The negatively charged 3D porous structure effectively inhibits the translocation of negatively charged polysulfide ions to enable highly robust Li-S batteries.

In their paper, the researchers show that by using a reduced graphene oxide (rGO)/sodium lignosulfonate (SL) composite on the standard polypropylene (PP) separator (rGO@SL/PP), they demonstrated a highly robust Li-S battery with a capacity retention of 74% over 1,000 cycles.

According to the latest rumors, Huawei's upcoming Honor Magic 2 smartphone (that will be launched in December 2018) will feature a graphene-enhanced battery, made by Huawei itself. Interestingly, Huawei's graphene battery will have about 45% of the capacity compared to regular Li-Ion ones, but it will be able to charge extremely fast - in about 12 minutes (for a 3,000 mAh battery). The graphene battery is almost double that of a Li-Ion one.

These are just rumors at this stage, and we have no way to verify them. We do know that Huawei has been working on graphene technologies for a long time, and has even launched a commercial graphene-enhanced battery in 2016 - in which the graphene is used to extend the battery's operational temperature range.