Graphene thermal conductivity - introduction and latest news - Page 13

XG Sciences, a US-based developer and producer of graphene flakes, has announced its plan to invest millions in expanding its Lansing-area facilities. The company will start operating out of new 64,000 square-foot facility in Vevay Township in March.

The company was formed in 2006 based on work out of Michigan State University. The company's technology can be used in automotive batteries and as wire coatings in electronics to prevent microchips from overheating. Some of the material has been used in Samsung phones as a thermally conductive adhesive, said current CEO Philip Rose. Rose also said the expansion marks the first phase in a move toward larger scale commercialization for the company.

Sweden-based 2D Fab AB recently entered into a collaboration agreement with a "technology leader in the energy storage market segment". 2D Fab AB states that it sees very large future volumes of graphene in these areas, and that it has already had good cooperation within the polymer area. "It is therefore very pleasing that we have now found an innovative industrial partner in thermal conductivity".

The collaboration agreement dictated that the Company will also evaluate different strategies for production and delivery scale up. In addition, it gives the opportunity to build relationships with an important and "potentially very large customer". The agreement is ongoing, with customs tollgates every 6 months.

Researchers from the Pierre Aigrain Laboratory in the ENS Physics department in Paris, France, have discovered a new cooling mechanism for electronic components made of graphene deposited on boron nitride. The efficiency of this mechanism reportedly allowed the team to reach electric intensities at the intrinsic limit of the laws of conduction.

Current-voltage (left) and temperature-voltage (right) characteristics of a graphene on boron nitride transistor. The transistor effect is visible by modulation of the current as a function of the gate voltage in the Zener-Klein tunnel transport regime.

Heat dissipation is vital in order to prevent deterioration or destruction of electronic components. The laws of physics dictate that increasing the density of components on a chipset implies increasing dissipation and thus heat. Nowadays, with the advances in 2D material devices, this question becomes particularly critical since components are required to be one atom thick. By producing a graphene-based transistor deposited on a boron nitride substrate, the team demonstrated a new cooling mechanism 10 times more efficient than basic heat diffusion. This new mechanism, which exploits the two-dimensional nature of the materials opens a "thermal bridge" between the graphene sheet and the substrate.

Cecorelax launched a pillow made from memory-foam enhanced with graphene particles, called the "Graphene Memory Foam Pillow". Cecorelax says that the pillow helps maintain body temperature during the night, and is highly resistant, light and flexible.

The Cecorelax graphene memory foam pillow is now shipping in the UK, with prices ranging from £26 to £49 (depending on the pillow size).

SaltX Technology, a Swedish company that develops and sells a technology with which energy can be stored in salt and recovered in the form of heat or cold, has entered into definitive agreements with a graphene company in order to use graphene in its SaltX product.

The idea is to take advantage of graphene's heat conductivity to enhance the performance of the SaltX material by up to five times. The collaboration project starts immediately and is expected to deliver the first batches of graphene material already next year.

First Graphene has provided an update on its development of the FireStop graphene-enhanced fire retardant coating in the form of a video. Development of the FireStop material is being conducted in conjunction with the University of Adelaide as part of the Company’s participation as a Tier 1 participant in the ARC Research Hub for Graphene Enabled Industry Transformation.

The video shows the dramatic effectiveness of FireStop when applied to simple wooden structures. Whereas the untreated structure on the left is totally consumed by fire, the structure treated with the FireStop retardant doesn’t seem to catch fire even after five minutes of trying. Given that fires generally start at specific ignition points, the ability of a graphene-based retardant to stop the ignition is a key feature of the product.

As part of a collaboration between the Graphene Flagship and the European Space Agency, experiments testing graphene for two different space-related applications have been performed. These have been reported to show very promising results, based on which the Flagship is to continue the development of graphene devices for use in space.

Graphene's excellent thermal properties are promising for improving the performance of loop heat pipes, thermal management systems used in aerospace and satellite applications. Graphene could also have a use in space propulsion, due to its lightness and strong interaction with light. The Graphene Flagship tested both these applications in recent experiments in November and December 2017.

Graphene has been attracting attention due to its exciting properties and countless ideas for applications benefiting from those properties have been thought of; However, it is rightfully claimed that graphene has yet to transform an actual industry or become a household name.

With that said, graphene seems to be slowly but surely entering the market in all sorts of products. In this post, we list 10 products already commercially available that contain graphene - and these are not all of them. Hopefully this is just the beginning and many more applications will follow.

International wheel producer Vittoria sells a range of bicycle wheels that are built from graphene-enhanced composite materials. The wheels, called Quarno (Graphene Plus inside) are available in three different editions (46, 60 and 84 mm) and contain graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) provided by Directa Plus. The company explains that the graphene grants the wheels advantages like heat dissipation (15-30°C lower) a crucial factor in the slopes, an increase in lateral stiffness (more than 50%) and puncture reduction, especially around the valve area.

Directa Plus has announced its collaboration with Iterchimica, am Italy-based producer and distributor of specialized additives for asphalt. The collaboration with Iterchimica is focused on developing a graphene-enhanced asphalt additive, which is patent-pending, that can significantly improve the durability and sustainability of asphalt road surfaces.

The new additive incorporating the Directa’s Graphene Plus (G+) has been launched by Iterchimica as "Eco Pave". As per reports, the success of laboratory and small-scale trials convinced Iterchimica to conduct a pilot test where Eco Pave will be used as an additive for asphalt covering several kilometers of road surface.

Researchers at Rice University have built atom-level computer models of pillared graphene—sheets of graphene connected by covalently bonded carbon nanotubes—and discovered that manipulating the joints between the nanotubes and graphene has a significant impact on the material's ability to direct heat. The team stated that this could prove important as electronic devices shrink and require more sophisticated heat sinks.

Researchers who study or are working to make pillared graphene have primarily viewed two characteristics of the theoretical material: the length of the pillars and their distance from each other. The new study suggests that a third parameter—the nature of the junction between the graphene and nanotubes—should also be considered.