Graphene composites: introduction and market status - Page 30

NanoXplore has announced an agreement to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of CEBO Injections, a Swiss-based injection molding company, from BCR Plastic Group. CEBO provides customers with high precision and high-quality injection molded products, and serves the automotive, medical, industrial and watches manufacturing markets.

Dr. Soroush Nazarpour, President and CEO of NanoXplore commented: "Our graphene improves the performance and minimizes shrinkage of injection molded plastic parts such as those provided by CEBO. Acquiring CEBO will allow NanoXplore to demonstrate the benefits of graphene to CEBO's existing customers while providing NanoXplore with an entry into the European market, accelerating the adoption of graphene enhanced thermoplastics".

The European Commission has released an interim review report of the Graphene Flagship project's first year following the two-and-half-year ramp-up phase. The Graphene Flagship was concluded to have achieved most of its objectives and milestones and delivered exceptional results with significant immediate or potential impact. The Graphene Flagship is further commended for focusing its work towards a more industrially oriented initiative with a higher Technology Readiness Level.

The report mentioned several significant results close to commercial exploitation, including work with Airbus to produce aircraft parts made of graphene composites, a motorcycle helmet with a graphene coating, a new viscoelastic graphene-polymer sensor material, perovskite photovoltaic cells with improved stability and a demonstration of tuneable ion sieving using GO membrane for water desalination.

Rice University scientists have developed highly efficient battery anodes using graphene and asphalt. To achieve this, the researchers mixed asphalt with conductive graphene nanoribbons and coated the composite with lithium metal through electrochemical deposition. The anodes showed exceptional stability after more than 500 charge-discharge cycles. A high-current density of 20 milliamps per square centimeter demonstrated the material’s promise for use in rapid charge and discharge devices that require high-power density.

SEM images show an anode of asphalt, graphene nanoribbons and lithium at left and the same material without lithium at right

The capacity of these batteries is enormous, but what is equally remarkable is that we can bring them from zero charge to full charge in five minutes, rather than the typical two hours or more needed with other batteries, Prof. James Tour said.

Imagine Intelligent Materials and Swinburne University have announced a collaborative six-month project aiming to develop graphene-reinforced smart composites. The composite will be able to report on the condition of large structures, and will have major commercial potential in the transport sector, including automotive and aerospace.

The project is supported by a $20,000 Seed grant from the university under a program, targeting interdisciplinary projects that are aligned with the Swinburne research institutes’ external partnership and collaboration objectives. It will combine expertise from experts in sensors, electronics engineering and aerospace manufacturing at the university.

Haydale recently announced that it has agreed heads of terms for a technical and commercial collaboration with Rogers Advanced Composites ("RAC). RAC is developing a composites center in the UK, and this collaboration will aim to enable RAC to access Haydale’s extensive technical know-how in composites, polymers and resins and to incorporate the range of advanced graphene enhanced composites, developed by Haydale, into its existing and future projects.

RAC, which has roots in the marine and yachting world through its sister company Rogers Yacht Design, has built a strong reputation in the design and manufacture of advanced composite products. It is Haydale’s understanding that RAC is experiencing a strong demand for high quality composite solutions across a range of industrial sectors including marine, military and motor sport and that RAC is in the process of securing long term production contracts for an oil recovery project as well as several aerospace, military and motor racing projects.

Researchers at the University of Connecticut, assisted by ones from the University of Akron, have patented a unique process for exfoliating graphene, as well as manufacturing innovative graphene nanocomposites that have potential uses in a variety of applications.

The new process doesn’t require any additional steps or chemicals to produce graphene in its pristine form. The innovation and technology behind our material is our ability to use a thermodynamically driven approach to un-stack graphite into its constituent graphene sheets, and then arrange those sheets into a continuous, electrically conductive, three-dimensional structure says the lead scientist in the study. The simplicity of our approach is in stark contrast to current techniques used to exfoliate graphite that rely on aggressive oxidation or high-energy mixing or sonication the application of sound energy to separate particles for extended periods of time. As straightforward as our process is, no one else had reported it. We proved it works.

Researchers at Purdue University have created a new type of graphene-enhanced non-liquid lubricant which reduces friction and wear. The suggested applications include air compressors for missile systems and more. The new liquid-free composite is made from a slurry of graphene, zinc oxide, and the polymer polyvinylidene difluoride.

The nanosize zinc-oxide particles allow the lubricant to stick to the metal surface, and the polymer binds the whole mixture together, said the team, which also explained that solid lubricants are needed for numerous applications such as air compressors, equipment used in the food industry, space vehicles, gear-and-chain mechanisms, fasteners found in high-temperature environments, and missile systems.

Italian and British researchers have created a unique kind of material, produced by spiders that were "fed" with miscrosopic flaked of graphene and CNTs.

The scientists fed "special" water to three species of spiders. Dispersed within it were microscopic flakes of graphene, or carbon nanotubes. When silk was subsequently gathered from the spiders, it was found that the graphene/nanotubes had been passed into the fibers. As a result, its tensile strength and toughness were much higher than that of regular spider silk.

A collaboration work by Purdue, the Chinese Lanzhou University and Harbin Institute of Technology, and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has yielded a lightweight, flame-resistant and super-elastic composite shown to combine high strength with electrical conductivity and thermal insulation, suggesting potential applications from buildings to aerospace.

The composite material is made of interconnected cells of graphene sandwiched between ceramic layers. The graphene scaffold, referred to as an aerogel, is chemically bonded with ceramic layers using a process called atomic layer deposition. The team explained that graphene would ordinarily degrade when exposed to high temperature, but the ceramic imparts high heat tolerance and flame-resistance, properties that might be useful as a heat shield for aircraft. The light weight, high-strength and shock-absorbing properties could make the composite a good substrate material for flexible electronic devices. Because it has high electrical conductivity and yet is an excellent thermal insulator, it might be used as a flame-retardant, thermally insulating coating, as well as sensors and devices that convert heat into electricity, said associate professor in the School of Industrial Engineering at Purdue University.

University of Manchester researchers, from the i-composite lab, have devised a method to characterize the dispersion of nanoparticles in polymer nanocomposites using non-contact infrared thermography mapping that measures the thermal diffusivity (α) of the graphene nanocomposite and relates α to a dispersion index.

The main advantage of the proposed method is its ability to evaluate dispersion over a large area at reduced effort and cost, in addition to measuring the thermal properties of the system. The actual resolution of this thermal mapping reaches 200μm per pixel, giving an accurate picture of graphene nanoplatelets (GNP) dispersion.