Graphene composites: introduction and market status - Page 38

A team of researchers at Brown University developed a composite catalyst using nitrogen-rich graphene dotted with copper nanoparticles. It was shown in a study that the new catalyst is able to efficiently and selectively convert carbon dioxide to ethylene, one of the world's most important commodity chemicals that is used to make plastics, construction materials and other products.

Chemical companies produce ethylene by the millions of tons each year using processes that usually involve fossil fuels. If excess carbon dioxide can indeed be used to make ethylene, like the results of this study imply, it could help make the chemical industry become more sustainable and eco-friendly. There is, however, much more work to be done before bringing such a process to an industrial scale.

A research group at the Swedish Chalmers University will collaborate with a group from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, on the synthesis and characterization of graphene-polymer composites for solar cell applications. The collaborative project will be funded by the Swedish Research Council through the motto Swedish Research Links, and continues 20 years of collaboration between the two universities.

The role of the polymer will be to harvest the energy from the sun, with graphene as the conductive part of the solar cell. Today, commonly used materials for conduction are fullerenes which, like graphene, are a kind of crystallized carbon. The problem with fullerenes, however, is that they are expensive and also are not stable enough to work efficiently in solar cells.

Group NanoXplore, a Canada-based company specializing in the production and application of graphene and its derivative materials, announced that it has added graphene-enhanced plastics to its product offering. Compounded pellets for different grades of Polyethylene (PE) and Polycarbonate (PC) are already available and additional plastics are to soon follow.

NanoXplore has a capacity of 400 metric tons per year of compounded master batch pellets. The company has been taking orders and sampling pellets to customers in Europe and North America since January 2016, and it has been focusing recently on polyethylene (PE) thermoplastics and has obtained significant multi-functional improvements in performance compared to base resins. For HDPE at 0.5 weight% graphene loading, a 15% increase in tensile strength was achieved without degrading material toughness. For LLDPE at 15 weight% graphene loading, thermal conductivity was doubled, yield strength increased by more than 30%, and electrical conductivity was increased to the anti-static range.

Grafoid has announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Xiamen Tungsten of Xiamen, China, for the establishment of a strategic joint venture partnership. The agreement establishes terms for Xiamen's acquisition of up to a 20% equity position in Grafoid through the purchase of common shares - including Grafoid common shares currently held by Grafoid's affiliate, Focus Graphite, an advanced Canadian graphite mining exploration and development company.

Focus Graphite currently holds 7.9 million Grafoid shares, and according to the MOU Xiamen can purchase up to 7 million shares from Grafoid. Seems like Focus Graphite does not want to remain a major shareholder in Grafoid - although the two companies are still linked by a 10-year offtake agreement.

IDTechEx Research recently released a report that projects that the graphene market will grow to $220 million in 2026, a 10% growth from their former report that predicted that the graphene market will reach nearly $200 million by 2026. This forecast is at the material level and does not count the value of graphene-enabled products.

According to IDTechEx, a continual decline in average sales prices will accompany the revenue growth, meaning that volume sales will reach nearly 3.8 k tonnes per year in 2026. Despite this, IDTechEx forecasts suggest that the industry will remain in a state of over-capacity until 2021 beyond which time new capacity will need to be installed. Furthermore, IDTechEx Research forecasts that nearly 90% of the market value will go to graphene platelets (vs. sheets) in 2026.

Haydale is developing, along with BAC Mono, a graphene-enhanced body panel for BAC's single seat road car. The graphene-enhanced epoxy resin has reportedly delivered increased strength and a "significant weight and cost reduction".

BAC representatives stated that "At BAC we focus heavily on innovation and we were delighted to work with graphene composite industry leaders Haydale on this project. It marks another world first for BAC and the beginning of a project with a broad range of exciting possibilities."

Haydale's Composite Solutions division (HCS) has announced the launch of three graphene enhanced carbon fibre pre-impregnated (prepreg) products, in collaboration with SHD Composite Materials Ltd (Sleaford, Lincolnshire, UK) using epoxy resins from Huntsman Advanced Materials.

The products to be launched include a structural component carbon fibre prepreg, a prototype Out-of-Autoclave curing carbon fibre tooling prepreg capable of fast composite part production in autoclave processing and a higher operating temperature prepreg for enhanced life and very high accuracy tooling.

Thomas Swan, manufacturer of performance and specialty chemicals, has announced that it has received funding from Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, for two new collaborative projects in a program entitled Advancing the Commercial Applications of Graphene. Both projects are due to start on 1st April 2016.

One of the projects involves a collaboration between Thomas Swan Advanced Materials and Plessey Semiconductors, Nano Products and Nottingham Trent and Strathclyde universities on flexible LEDs. The other project will see Thomas Swan cooperating with DelStar International, Haydale, and the University of Bradford to develop plastic composites for advanced separations.

Graphene has great potential to improve various components used in mobile devices, from transparent flexible screens to next-gen batteries, through durable phone casings, sensors, and powerful processors. Don't miss our new article on graphene for the mobile industry!

The MWC 2016 the world's largest event for the mobile industry held in Barcelona, Spain, will feature an entire pavilion dedicated to graphene in regards to the mobile world, an exciting precedent that emphasizes the growing attention that graphene is receiving in the technological world. The Graphene-Info team will attend the MWC 2016. If you wish to schedule a meeting with us, contact us here.

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and UC Santa Cruz have demonstrated what might be the world's first 3D-printed graphene composite aerogel supercapacitor, using a technique known as direct-ink writing. The researchers suggest that their ultra-lightweight graphene aerogel supercapacitors may open the door to novel designs of highly efficient energy storage systems for smartphones, wearables, implantable devices, electric cars and wireless sensors.

The key factor in developing these novel aerogels is creating an extrudable graphene oxide-based composite ink and modifying the 3D printing method to accommodate aerogel processing. The 3D-printed graphene composite aerogel (3D-GCA) electrodes are lightweight, highly conductive, and exhibit excellent electrochemical properties. Supercapacitors using these 3D-GCA electrodes with thicknesses on the order of millimeters display exceptional capacitive retention (ca. 90% from 0.5 to 10 A·g−1) and power densities (>4 kW·kg−1).