Graphene batteries: Introduction and Market News - Page 40

Today we published a new version of our Graphene Batteries Market Report. Graphene-Info provides comprehensive niche Graphene market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about the niche market, and can be useful if you want to understand how the graphene industry works and what this technology can provide for your own industry.

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 great introduction to the graphene batteries market - present and future. Read more here!

Shandong Yuhuang New Energy Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary of Shandong Yuhuang, is a company focusing on research and development of advanced lithium-ion batteries and related materials. It recently exhibited its new battery products (NCM with graphene as shown in the photo and LFP with graphene).

The company is a member of China Innovation Alliance of Graphene Industry. The mother company, Shandong Yuhuang chemical company reached sales revenue of RMB 28.6 billion (about US$ 4.5 billion) and more than 5,000 employees in 2014.

Sunvault Energy announced that it, in conjunction with the Edison Power Company, has completed the development of a graphene-enhanced Smartphone Battery Case that is built initially for the IPhone. Smartphone case designs for major brands such as LG and Samsung and other Smartphone manufactured devices are to follow shortly. The Company will be submitting this prototype for certification and verification.

The Battery Case will provide approximately 5000 mAh (milliamp hours) of energy to the first prototype IPhone model. The case will charge in roughly 3 minutes and will provide approximately 200% of additional power for most smartphones that are in the average 2400 mAh battery range. In addition to the fast charging, the case will not experience or generate any significant heat, and will have the unique attributes of both a battery and supercapacitor. Additional attributes will include superior cycles that will go far beyond the Lithium Ion spec of 500 cycles of charge / discharge before battery requires replacement. It will also be considerably lighter than current products on the market. The Company will start by focusing on the top Smartphone lines, which include: Samsung, Apple IPhone, Lenovo, LG, Huawei, Xiaomi and Sony.

Saint Jean Carbon, a company engaged in the development of natural graphite properties and related carbon products, has announced that it has received another grant from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), In addition to the grant received in October 2015.

The funds will be used to further the material knowledge of the Saint Jean Carbon ferromagnetic graphene. This research is the next step in the development of understanding where the material can be used in future applications, and provides a further understanding of the unique properties contained in the ferromagnetic graphene. The company states that the funds provide it with a very special opportunity to work with top universities like Western University, and their bioengineering team.

Graphene 3D Lab has announced Graphene Flex Foam, a new commercial product that will be available through Graphene Laboratories’ e-commerce site, Graphene Supermarket. The new product is described as a Multilayer Freestanding Flexible Graphene Foam, that brings together a conductive elastomer composite with ultra-light graphene foam.

The foam, a highly conductive 3D chemical vapor deposition (CVD), together with the composite, brings together the best of several worlds of graphene usage. As a flexible foam, the material is both lightweight and reconfigurable, adding to ease of use and handling, with a porous structure. The Graphene Flex Foam could be used in conjunction with other graphene-related materialssuch as Graphene 3D Lab’s filament offeringsin the creation of electronics and other conductive products.

Graphenano, the Spain-based manufacturer of graphene, announced the installation of a manufacturing plant for batteries with Graphene Polymer in Yecla, (Murcia) Spain.

This plant will reportedly host twenty assembly and manufacturing lines of high added value batteries which should produce, at full capacity, more than a million cells. The production of the first cells in this plant is foreseen for the months of January and February, and will be at full capacity in the second half of the next year.

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have found a way to make lithium ion batteries last longer and charge faster, by using graphene nanofoam electrodes and treating them with hydrogen. The calculations and experiments carried out as part of the research revealed that when defect-rich graphene was intentionally treated with hydrogen at a low-temperature, it enhanced the rate capacity of the graphene, so that the interaction of the two opened small gaps in the coating that resulted in better binding between the electrode and lithium ions. 

Using these new electrodes, charging rates went up to 40% faster, with less energy waste during charging and higher power output. The scientists say, however, that here is still a lot to achieve before the work finds its way into commercial batteries. The study also reveals that controlled hydrogen treatment could help optimize the transport of lithium and reversible storage in other materials that are based on graphene.

An international team of researchers from six countries have designed a highly sensitive gas sensor made from boron-doped graphene, able to detect noxious gas molecules at extremely low concentrations, parts per billion in the case of nitrogen oxides and parts per million for ammonia. These sensors can be used for labs and industries that use ammonia, a highly corrosive health hazard, or to detect nitrogen oxides, a dangerous atmospheric pollutant emitted from automobile tailpipes. In addition to detecting toxic or flammable gases, theoretical work indicates that boron-doped graphene could lead to improved lithium-ion batteries and field-effect transistors. 

The sensor reaches a 27 times greater sensitivity to nitrogen oxides and 10,000 times greater sensitivity to ammonia compared to pristine graphene. The researchers believe these results will open a path to high-performance sensors that can detect trace amounts of many other molecules.

Angstron Materials has announced the establishment of a sister company called EnerG Nano, that is looking to invest around $20 million to open a production facility in Miamisburg. The company has picked a developer and a site at the Mound campus, but is still working to line up investors and incentives before making a commitment.

It seems that the plan is for Angstron to sell graphene to EnerG Nano, which would use it to make energy storage devices such as lithium-ion batteries. To boost production, Angstron is ramping up for a more than $1 million expansion that would more than double its space, according to an economic grant application. The investment would go toward purchasing a nearby 26,000-square-foot facility as well as renovations and equipment.

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have created a graphene-based lithium-oxygen battery that is extremely energy dense, can be recharged more than 2000 times, and is 90% more efficient than current models. Lithium-oxygen batteries as regarded as the "ultimate" batteries because their theoretical energy density is ten times higher than a lithium-ion battery.

The researchers offered potential solutions to some of the problems facing such batteries before they can be realized, by producing a lab-based demonstrator of a lithium-oxygen battery that is a huge improvement over previous models. The new device relies on a highly porous carbon electrode made from graphene and other chemical additives. Although not all the problems have been solved, the results are a great advancement and show routes forward towards a practical device.