Graphene Coating: introduction and market status - Page 22

Group NanoXplore is a Montreal-based company specializing in the production and application of graphene and its derivative materials. The company's CEO and President, Dr. Soroush Nazarpour, was kind enough to answer a few questions we had regarding NanoXplore's technology and business.

Q: Hello Dr. Soroush. Can you update us on your current graphene material production and your new 3-ton GNP production facility?

Our Montreal production facility is running at full steam. Not only are we producing a full range of graphene materials, we are making more and more graphene-enhanced polymer products. In October we will be moving to a new facility, having outgrown our current space. The new facility will double our lab facilities and more than quadruple our production floor space.

We are seeing especially strong demand for graphene-enhanced plastics and rubber, with most customers focusing on improving mechanical and thermal characteristics. We have also seen a lot of emerging demand for coatings for textiles and other flexible substrates for thermal management, improved surface properties and protection.

Haydale has been awarded over £450,000 by the government to work on series of research projects. The studies, set to take place over the next 18 months, include several areas of research like a low cost, self-cleaning graphene enhanced coating which could be used to clean and filter swimming pools and waste water, as well as developing resins and coatings for boats and sign posts which emit UV fluorescent dyes under impact.

In a research funded by a U.S. Department of Defense-Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative grant and Wenzhou Medical University, an international team of scientists has developed what is referred to as the first one-step process for making seamless carbon-based nanomaterials that possess superior thermal, electrical and mechanical properties in 3D. The research may hold potential for increased energy storage in high efficiency batteries and supercapacitors, increasing the efficiency of energy conversion in solar cells, for lightweight thermal coatings and more. 

The group's early testing showed that a 3D fiber-like supercapacitor made with uninterrupted fibers of carbon nanotubes and graphene matched or even surpassed bettered the reported record-high capacities for such devices. When tested as a counter electrode in a dye-sensitized solar cell, the material enabled the cell to convert power with up to 6.8% efficiency and more than doubled the performance of a similar cell that used an expensive platinum wire counter electrode. 

A few weeks ago we reported on a new IDTechEx market report, in which they predict that the graphene market will reach nearly $200 million by 2026, with the estimation that the largest sectors will be composites, energy applications and graphene coatings.

We were very interested in learning more, and Dr Khasha Ghaffarzadeh, IDTechEx's head of consulting was kind enough to answer a few questions and explain the company's view on the graphene market.

Q: IDTechEx has been following graphene for a long time with dedicated events and reports. Why is this new material interesting for IDTechEx?

We have a long track record of analyzing emerging advanced materials such as quantum dots, CNTs, Ag nanostructures, silicon nanostructures, OLED materials, etc. We were however pulled into the world of graphene by our clients’ questions. Once in, we soon realized that there is a big synergy between graphene and our events. in fact, our events on supercapacitors and printed electronics were the right near-term addressable market for graphene, and that is why we managed to rapidly build up the largest business-focused event on graphene. Our events on graphene are held in the USA and Europe each year see www.IDTechEx.com/usa.

Scientists at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, and collaborators from institutions in Australia, Singapore, Japan, and the US have developed a new technique for growing graphene from tea tree extract. Graphene is only made of carbon atoms, so theoretically can be grown from any carbon source, but scientists are still looking for a graphene precursor and growth method that is sustainable, scalable, and economically feasible, since these are all requirements for realizing widespread commercialization of graphene-based devices.

In this study, the researchers have grown graphene from the tea tree plant Melaleuca alternifolia, a plant used to make essential oils in traditional medicine. They demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate large-area, nearly defect-free graphene films from tea tree oil in as little as a few seconds to a few minutes, whereas current growth methods usually take several hours. Unlike current methods, the new method also works at relatively low temperatures, does not require catalysts, and does not rely on methane or other nonrenewable, toxic, or explosive precursors.

Scientists at The National Physical Laboratory's (NPL) have been investigating the hydrophobicity of epitaxial graphene, which could be used in the future to better tailor graphene coatings to applications in medicine, electronics and more. Contrary to popular beliefs, the scientists' findings indicate that graphene's hydrophobicity is strongly thickness-related, with single-layer graphene being significantly more hydrophilic than its multi-layered graphene.

As graphene-based devices will have to operate in ambient conditions with existing (and unmonitored) humidity, it may be troublesome that such conditions can affect graphene's performance through changes in its mechanical and electrical properties; The new study, conducted in collaboration with the Naval Research Laboratory, addresses the question of whether graphene is hydrophobic or hydrophilic. The common assumption is that graphene is hydrophobic, but it seems that the results of this study prove the question more complex than previously thought.

Manchester University has teamed up with Amsterdam-based paints and coatings company Akzo Nobel, to investigate graphene oxide-based paints that provide protection against rust and corrosion for large metal structures, such as oil rigs, tankers and bridges.

This collaboration between Akzo Nobel and Manchester University is part of a €1m partnership in corrosion research. Akzo Nobel says graphene oxide could provide an ultra-strong, non-corrosive coating for a wide range of industrial applications. Corrosion in its various forms is estimated to cost the global economy $3 trillion a year. Products to protect against corrosion represent an $18 billion world market.

A team of scientists from the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) in Korea announced the successful development of a technology to make a washable, flexible and highly-sensitive textile-type gas sensor.

This technology is based on coating graphene using molecular adhesives to textile like nylon, cotton, or polyester so that textile can check whether or not gas exists in the air. When graphene oxides meet the NO2 found in methane gases at room temperatures, their resistivity changes based on the gas density. Consequently, when putting out a fire or entering an area in which air conditions are hard to determine, it will be possible for firefighters to check the condition of the air through a connected device by wearing work clothes with gas sensors made from textiles.

A series of Stanford-led experiments demonstrate that graphene may be able to replace tantalum nitride as a sheathing material for chip wires, to help electrons move through the copper wires more quickly. The scientists say that using graphene to wrap wires could allow transistors to exchange data faster than is currently possible and the advantages of using graphene could become even greater in the future, as transistors continue to reduce in size.

The protective layer isolates the copper from the silicon on the chip and also serves to conduct electricity. Its significance is great since it keeps the copper from migrating into the silicon transistors and rendering them non-functional. Graphene has several advantages for this kind of application: the scientists could use a layer eight times thinner than the industry-standard and get the same effect, and the graphene also acts as a barrier to prevent copper atoms from infiltrating the silicon. The Stanford experiment showed that graphene could perform this isolating role while also serving as an auxiliary conductor of electrons. Its structure allows electrons to move from one carbon atom to another, down the wire, while effectively containing the copper atoms within the copper wire. 

One exciting application of graphene is in the paints industry. Graphene's high resistivity can make for durable coatings that do not crack and are resistant to water and oil, its excellent electrical and thermal conductivity can be used to make various conductive paints, and a strong barrier effect can contribute to extraordinary anti-oxidant, scratch-resistant and anti-UVA paints. Don't miss our new article that introduces Graphene Paints.