Graphene thermal conductivity - introduction and latest news - Page 11

Sweden-based Graphmatech develops and produces novel graphene-based nanocomposite materials, under the Aros Graphene brand. The company recently secured an investment from ABB and Walerud Ventures, and the company's CFO, Bjorn Lindh, was kind enough to answer a few questions we had to him.

Q: Thank you for your time Bjorn. Can you give us a short introduction to Graphmatech's Aros Graphene materials, and how it differs from other graphene materials on the market?

Graphmatech has invented the novel material, Aros Graphene that keeps most of graphene's features, while making it easy to use in large industrial scales by preventing agglomeration, which is a key challenge for the use of graphene. Aros graphene is produced in powder form and can be used as additive, as coating or even in 3D-printing. The market introduction and launch of first products, filaments and thermal paste, will be introduced to the market in 2019.

First Graphene has announces the release of its PureGRAP graphene products. Over the last five months FGR’s management has worked with various universities and on its own production processes to ensure it could consistently produce a suitable range of products.

The initial product includes PureGRAPH graphene products with lateral sizes of 20µm, 10µm and 5µm. Further size options are planned to be added later. FGR says that due to its unique process it is able to produce graphene with larger lateral sheet sizes if a customer should have a particular application.

First Graphene has announced a collaboration agreement with FlexeGRAPH to supply graphene for suitability testing in their products. FlexeGRAPH is developing advanced coolant technology using graphene-enhanced heat transfer fluids.

The nanofluid coolant technologyis said by the Company to represent a breakthrough in liquid coolants, establishing a new standard and showing up to 60% improvements in thermal conductivity over current competitors.

A China-based company named Shenzhen Danbond Technology announced that it had begun mass production trials of a self-developed graphene product.

The product seems to be a highly-conductive film that can be used in electric vehicle batteries, to dissipate heat in electronic devices and in solar power generation and flexible screens, according to the company. It reportedly plans to begin mass production early next year.

Promethient, an early stage U.S-based company that developed graphene-enhanced seat warmer technology, has received a large (though undisclosed) equity investment from Faurecia Ventures, the investment arm of Nanterre, France-based Faurecia, the sixth-largest auto supplier in the world, with a big American presence.

The funding will allow Promethient to ramp up product development and marketing and also provides it with a very large early customer. The investment will also allow Promethient to sell to other auto suppliers and makers.

Directa Plus has announced that Oakley, in collaboration with Bioracer, a designer and manufacturer of customized clothing for cycling, have launched the G+ Graphene Aero Jersey containing the Company’s graphene-based products. Unveiled today at the July 2018 EUROBIKE trade show in Friedrichshafen, Germany, the new jersey is designed to leverage the unique properties of Graphene Plus (G+) to dissipate heat from the rider’s body.

Directa Plus' printed G+ planar thermal circuit distributes the heat generated by the body and dissipates it when needed to improve the comfort of the wearer and enable riders to use less energy to regulate their body temperature. Fabrics treated with G+ are also electrostatic and bacteriostatic. These properties contribute to moisture management and have an anti-odor effect, and, if placed on the outside of the garment, G+ reduces the friction with air and water to facilitate top sporting performance.

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, have developed a graphene assembled film that has over 60% higher thermal conductivity than graphite film despite the fact that graphite consists of many layers of graphene. The graphene film shows great potential as a novel heat spreading material for form-factor driven electronics and other high power-driven systems. The IP of the high-quality manufacturing process for the graphene film belongs to SHT Smart High Tech AB, a spin-off company from Chalmers, which is going to focus on the commercialization of the technology.

Until now, many scientists in the graphene research community have assumed that graphene assembled film cannot have higher thermal conductivity than graphite film. Single layer graphene has a thermal conductivity between 3500 and 5000 W/mK. If you put several graphene layers together, then it theoretically becomes graphite.

Researchers from Bilkent University and Izmir Institute of Technology in Turkey, MIT and University of Manchester have developed a system that can reconfigure its thermal appearance to blend in with varying temperatures in a matter of seconds.

Previously, scientists have tried to develop thermal camouflage for various applications, but they have encountered problems such as slow response speed, lack of adaptability to different temperatures and the requirement for rigid materials. The team in this research wanted to develop a fast, rapidly adaptable and flexible material.

A collaboration between two innovative material technology startups Graphmatech and Add North 3D (a Swedish 3D materials developer specialized in FDM materials) has developed novel conductive Aros Graphene-based filaments for 3D printing. This may open up many new different 3D-printing applications such as thermal management components, circuit boards and efficient electromagnetic and radio frequency shielding.

The recently developed 3D-printing technology based on Graphematech's Aros Graphene may grant the ability to control the exact level of conductivity of the filament. The new filaments will now be optimized and go through beta testing with a reference group before it is expected to reach the market in 6-12 month.

Australia-based advanced materials company Talga Resources has reported high levels of electrical conductivity in concrete by using an additive developed from the Company’s graphene-graphite research and development laboratory in the UK.

(L) Talga concrete sample after melting 5cm depth of ice from 9v power. (R) Conceptual underfloor heating/road application.

The reported breakthrough offers substantial potential in existing and emerging industrial applications, particularly as concrete is the world’s largest construction material by volume. Talga shared information gathered from tests that show that the graphene-enhanced concrete is highly electrically conductive - attaining 0.05 ohm.cm volume resistivity.