Graphene composites: introduction and market status - Page 36

Researchers at Exeter have devised a graphene composite (GraphExeter) that is highly conducting, and now they demonstrate the first prototype of the material in an electroluminescent device, showing its feasibility for luminescent textiles and flexible displays.

The high conductivity of GraphExeter can introduce many improvements to flexible displays. Large screens using existing materials fade to a darker region in the middle due to the sheet resistance. This places a practical limitation in the range of square centimetres on how large the screen can be. The extremely low sheet resistance of GraphExeter - less than 8Ω/□ compared with 1000Ω/□ for pristine single layer graphene and 850Ω/□ for the more commonly used PEDOT/PSS means that screens several square metres in size are feasible.

Graphene 3D Lab announced that it will be selling a new single-layer graphene oxide material under the trade name of ORG-GO.

The new material can reportedly be easily dissolved in a variety of organic solvents to achieve ultrahigh concentrations. ORG-GO also boasts outstanding thermal stability. G3L expects that the ORG-GO product line will find numerous applications such as being a reinforcement for polymers and nanocomposites as well as for the preparation of high-performance graphene inks and coatings.

The Sixth Element Materials Technology is a Chengzhou, China based company that develops and produces graphene and graphene oxide materials. The company recently opened a sales office in Europe, and appointed Bernhard Münzing as sales director.

Bernhard was kind enough to participate in an interview with graphene-info. Bernhard is an industrial engineer with a focus on chemistry, who has held different positions in sales, materials management, marketing and business development in big as well as medium sized chemical companies.

Q: We understand that The Sixth Element (T6E) currently produces graphene flakes and graphene oxide, in a 100 ton/year plant in Chengzhou. Is that correct? Can you tell us anything regarding the current production plant?

Researchers at MIT have found a way to make composite materials using large area graphene films, in which large numbers of layers are stacked in an orderly manner, without having to stack each layer individually. This could enable creating composite materials containing hundreds of layers and open the door to various possibilities for designing new, easy-to-manufacture composites for optical devices, electronic systems, and more.

A major obstacle in creating graphene-based composites has been that graphene sheets and particles have a strong tendency to adhere together, so just stirring them into a batch of liquid resin before it sets is inefficient. The new technique could go a long way in solving this - while the process is more complex than it sounds, at the heart of it is a technique similar to that used to make puff pastry common in many desserts. A layer of material — dough, or graphene, in this case — is spread out flat. Then, the material is doubled over on itself, pounded or rolled out, and then doubled over again, and again, and again. With each fold, the number of layers doubles, thus producing an exponential increase in the layering. Just 20 simple folds would produce more than a million perfectly aligned layers.

G³ (Global Graphene Group), a holding company for subsidiaries Angstron Materials, Honeycomb Battery and Nanotek Instruments, announced that it has secured the first $10 million of a Preferred Series A investment from Western & Southern Financial Group, with conditions for a second close of an additional $13 million for a total $23 million Series A investment with Western & Southern as the sole investor.

G³ is engaged in commercializing graphene raw materials, and graphene-enabled applications including nanocomposites, thermal interface materials, and advanced batteries. G3 is headquartered in Dayton with operations in Asia.

Montreal-based graphene producer and developer Group NanoXplore recently announced some interesting and promising developments. We discuss the company's recent advances with the company's CEO and President, Dr. Soroush Nazarpour.

Hello Dr. Soroush. We know NanoXplore as a graphene producer but recently we hear that the company has been bringing graphene to the plastic industry. Why have you chosen to focus on this market?

NanoXplore is manufacturing graphene-enhanced polymers in response to the customer need for plastics with better electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties. Results from compounding NanoXplore’s graphene with Polyethylene, for example, have shown 10 orders of magnitude increase in electrical conductivity, 5 orders increase in thermal conductivity and a 30% increase in mechanical yield strength.

Group NanoXplore is pleased to announce that it launched a new blow and injection molded plastic facility earlier this year to manufacture engineered plastics products, and is already supplying to more than 30 customers.

NanoXplore is targeting graphene-enhanced thermoplastics in response to broad customer interest for engineering plastics with enhanced electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties. The company recently added a 22,000 sq. ft. plastic injection and blow molding production facility, including mold design and fabrication. This production facility will allow NanoXplore to supply OEMs with final plastic products benefiting from graphene. The company is actively working with several OEMs to become a certified supplier.

Researchers in Taiwan have shown that graphene could be used as an efficient heat sink between p-n junctions in light-emitting diodes (LEDs). When glued to a polyamide via a titane coupling agent (TCA), reduced graphene improved the thermal conductivity of an interfacial nanocomposite by 53%, compared to a control that contained only the polymer.

In addition to being 53% more thermally conductive than the polyamide polymer alone, the graphene composite also came to a higher equilibrium temperature, signifying better heat transfer. When used to coat the interface, LEDs maintained 95% of their light intensity over 7,000 hours, while the control only maintained about 68%.

The National Graphene Institute (NGI) recently signed a collaborative partnership with Haydale to accelerate the commercialization of applications. Haydale has been working closely with the NGI, and has now entered into a formal partnership which aims to leverage each party’s particular expertise in order to seek opportunities to develop and commercialize graphene products and applications.

This collaboration will likely see the NGI utilizing the Haydale patented process incorporated in its R&D plasma reactor for research into the functionalization of graphene and other nanomaterials. It will also look into the use, process and identification of nanomaterials to enhance performance in composites, sensors, printable inks, supercapacitators, rubbers and elastomers.

Versarien recently announced that it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Spain-based CT Engineering to develop graphene-enhanced composite components for the aerospace industry.

The companies will collaborate to develop a new generation of aerospace components with market leading material properties and performance levels. According to company representatives, the unique combination of CT Engineering's position as a first tier supplier to Airbus Group specializing in advanced composite research & design and Versarien's protected graphene technology, will rapidly move this venture forward and produce a range of innovative products that will disrupt the current aerospace component market.