Graphene batteries: Introduction and Market News - Page 52

The University of Cambridge announce plans to establish a new center for graphene research. The Cambridge Graphene Centre (CGC) will start operation on February 1st 2013 and the university will open a dedicated facility with state-of-the-art equipment towards the end of 2013.

The UK government gave a grant of over £12 million to support the new center's activities. The CGC will use the money to buy equipment and support projects that aim to develop new mass-production high-quality graphene production processes and some potential applications. The CGC's director will be Professor Andrea Ferrari.

Back in May 2011, a graphene research program (called FET Graphene Flagship) was shortlisted for one of two €1 billion EU research initiatives. Today we're happy to report that this project was indeed chosen by the European Commission. This is set to be a huge boost to graphene research and will hopefully accelerate commercialization of graphene based products. The EU will officially announce their decision next week (January 28).

The graphene flagship project is led by theoretical physicist Jari Kinaret at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. The project will focus on developing graphene applications in the computing, batteries and sensor markets. It will also develop related materials. Back in 2011 it was reported that the project already includes over 130 research groups, representing 80 academic and industrial partners in 21 European countries.

Update: read more about Duke's graphene-based artifical muscles research here

Researchers from Duke University are developing ways to control the crumpling and unfolding of large area graphene. By attaching the graphene to a pre-stretched rubber film. When the film was relaxed, parts of the graphene sheet detached, forming an attached-detached pattern with a feature size of a few nanometers. When the film was stretched again, the adhered spots of graphene pulled on the crumpled areas to unfold the sheet.

So basically stretching and relaxing a rubber film, even manually can crumple and unfold large area graphene sheets. This opens up the possibility of all sorts of applications. One example is a graphene film that can be changed from transparent to opaque (it is transparent when stretched but opaque when crumpled).

Lux Research released a new report (Is Graphene the Next Silicon ... Or Just the Next Carbon Nanotube?) on the graphene market, in which they forecast that the graphene market will grow to $126 million in 2020 (up from $9 million in 2012). It's an impressive growth - but the overall market will remain small. Most of the growth will come from graphene nanoplatelets (NGP) for the composites and energy storage applications. Graphene sheets will remain mostly in the lab.

According to Lux, the leading companies will be XG Sciences and Vorbeck Materials. Vorbeck is selling higher margin conductive inks, while XG supplies GNPs to corporate channel partners. Regarding newer startups (such as Graphene Technologies, Grafoid, National Nanomaterials, Xolve and Haydale), Lux says it is simply too early to tell.

Researchers from Rice University managed to develop a new hybrid material that combines carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with graphene. The CNTs rise like towers from the graphene - up to 120 microns in height. This material has a massive surface (over 2,000 square meters per gram of material), which will be great for energy storage supercapacitors and other applications. Just to compare, a house on an average plot with the same aspect ratio would rise into space.

The nanotubes do not simply "sit" on the graphene - they are part of it as they share the atoms (the bonds between them are covalent). To develop this material, the researchers grew graphene on metal (copper) and then the CNTs were grown on the graphene. The electrical contact between the nanotubes and the metal electrode is ohmic. That means electrons see no difference, because it's all one seamless material.

Grafoid has signed a 3-year R&D agreement with Hydro-Quebec's Research Institute (IREQ) for the development of next generation rechargeable batteries using graphene with lithium iron phosphate materials. This is a 50-50 collaborative agreement that aims to create patentable inventions by combining graphene, supplied by Grafoid (from the Lac Knife graphite resource of Focus Metals), with Hydro-Quebec's patented lithium iron phosphate technologies.

Grafoid and the IREQ are targeting two specific markets - rechargeable automobile batteries and batteries for mobile electronic devices (such as smartphones and laptops).

Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, developed a new coating technology a few years ago as part of their sol-gel chemistry in hydrogen-peroxide-rich solutions research. This technology uses nanometric metal oxide dots. Now this technology is used to synthesize graphene-tin oxide composites based Li-Ion battery anodes. This new application was developed in collaboration with Singapore's National Research Foundation under its CREATE program.

Graphene-tin oxide is attractive as an anode material due to its high charging capacity, thigh conductivity and the fact that the graphene oxide and tin oxide nanocrystals are in close contact. But synthesizing those composites is difficult because the only way to coat an ultra-thin layer of tin oxide nanocrystals on a sheet of graphene oxide is slow, expensive and needs a high temperature. But the new coating technology is done at room temperature and is simple and thus less expensive.

California Lithium Battery (CalBattery) say that their GEN3 anode material (siliocn-graphene based), when used with advanced cathode and electrolyte materials, increases energy density by 3 times and specific anode capacity by 4 times over existing LIBs. CalBattery has been working with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to commercialize a novel lithium battery anode material.

In independent full cell tests, the material shows unrivaled performance characteristics: an energy density of 525WH/Kg and specific anode capacity 1,250mAh/g. Just to compare, most commercial LIBs have an energy density of between 100-180WH/kg and a specific anode capacity of 325mAh/g.

Researchers from Brown University designed the world's best non-platinum catalyst, based on cobalt-graphene. This can be used to replace Platinum with a more durable and less expensive material as a fuel-cell catalyst.

To create this new material, the researchers used a self-assembly method. First, they dispersed cobalt nanoparticles and graphene in separate solutions. The two solutions were then combined and pounded with sound waves to make sure they mixed thoroughly. That caused the nanoparticles to attach evenly to the graphene in a single layer. Using a centrifuge, the material was removed from the solution, and it was then dried. Exposing it to air, the outside layers of atomic cobalt on each nanoparticle are oxidized which forms a shell of cobalt-oxide that helps protect the cobalt core.

XG Sciences announced today that the US Department of Energy (DOE) selected the company to develop high-energy Lithium-ion battery materials for use in extended range electric vehicle applications. XG-Sciences developed a silicon-graphene nanocomposite anode material (based on their xGnP graphene nanoplatelets and XG Leaf graphene sheets) that demonstrated significant increases in energy storage capacity over traditional graphite.

The DOE targets 600 mAh/g reversible anode capacity and 1000 cycle life in 250 mAh cells. XG Sciences will collaborate on this project with battery maker LG Chem Power and the Georgia Institute of Technology.