Lubricants

Researchers at the UK's University of Leicester, Russia's Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology and Kemerovo State University, TerraVox Global in Cyprus, National University of Singapore and the University of Twente in the Netherlands have gained better understanding of superlubricity, where surfaces experience extremely low levels of friction.

The team addressed a longtime mystery in the principles of superlubricity – a state in which two surfaces experience little to almost no friction when sliding across one another. Superlubricity is associated with molecular smooth surfaces such as graphene and has only been observed in a laboratory environment where these surfaces can be synthesized. In various technological applications, this phenomenon could potentially reduce friction up to 1000 – 10000 times, as compared to conventional friction in machines and mechanisms.

Magellan International Lube & Chemical is a small company based in the US, that designs and sells products for heavy industry and the performance world. The company's owner has been successful in solving solutions for NASA and he has been inducted into the NASA Space technology Hall of Fame for Advanced Lubrication Technology.

Magellan's research team has been attracted to graphene years ago, and have spent over 5 years testing and developing the ability to enhance its lubricants with graphene materials. The company's first project was to develop a graphene-enhanced assembly lube.

HydroGraph Clean Power has announced that its patented Hyperion System, designed for scaled-up production of high-purity graphene, achieved a key technology milestone to produce commercial scale quantities graphene. 

The Hyperion System will produce fractal graphene to serve various markets including lubricants, energy storage, resins, specialty chemicals, coatings and other markets. The validation process reportedly confirmed the capex cost per metric ton of graphene produced will be one of the lowest in the industry. The system can produce over 10 metric tons per year using readily available commodity acetylene and oxygen.

E2 Holdings, working with 2DM, recently launched an engine oil additive formulated with high purity graphene. The product, called NAMITEC, is said to improve fuel economy, restore power and performance, reduce noise and vibration, extend engine life and more. 

The Company explains that graphene as a lubricating additive can reduce the coefficient of friction due to its capability to produce a nano-bearing protective layer for the moving parts of your engine. SG Graphene NAMITEC engine oil additive is suitable for all gasoline and diesel engines, as well as machinery and tools.

Haydale recently announced it will be partnering with CERN, the European particle physics laboratory, on a new project aimed at improving the durability of the lubricants currently used on some of the world’s largest particle physics equipment including the Large Hadron Collider.

Polymers in the oils and greases currently used are heavily susceptible to radiation damage leading to degradation of the lubricant. Using Haydale’s HDPlas® process, the aim is to increase the lifetime of the lubricants by adding functionalized nanomaterials, including graphene. The goal is to increase the material’s resistance and better dispersion characteristics should help to achieve this. As well as the potential for significant cost savings, increasing the service life of the lubricants in use is perhaps even more important given the highly limited access there is in these areas.

The Enlit Europe 2022 energy conference recently took place, and the Graphene Flagship participated, showing some of the latest energy-related graphene projects. We took the chance to discuss graphene with some of the flagship researchers, and we also talked to Prof. Jari Kinaret, the director of the flagship project, to learn of how he summarizes the last 10 years now that the flagship project will soon end.

Q: We understand that the Graphene Flagship is attending Enlit Europe 2022, showing some new graphene R&D projects. We'll be happy to get an overview of what will be displayed at the event.

At Enlit Europe, the Graphene Flagship exhibited innovations from its Spearhead Projects, which are industry-led initiatives working to move materials from research labs towards commercial applications. Among these initiatives are:

• CircuitBreakers, led by ABB and developing first-of-their-kind grease-free, maintenance-free, low-voltage circuit breakers for fault protection in key parts of the electrical grid;
• GRAPES, led by Enel Green Power and working on combining silicon solar cells with perovskite solar cells, paving the way for low-cost, highly efficient photovoltaic energy, surpassing the limits of silicon based cells.

A team of researchers from Korea's Pusan National University, led by Assistant Professor Songkil Kim, have examined the relationship between surface structures on chemical vapor deposition (CVD) grown graphene and its properties, specifically friction.

They correlated surface structures with nanoscale friction of a multi-layered graphene island. By cleaning the graphene surface using mechanical scratching of polymeric surface contamination, the team unveiled the surface structures such as small-scale and large-scale (folded) wrinkles on graphene using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and investigated their effect on nanoscale friction.

Gigabyte launched a new graphic cards that uses a graphene lubricant that is said to extend the lifetime of the fan by 2.1 times, almost like a double ball bearing design - and it also makes the fab quieter compared to the company's designs that do not use graphene.

The GeForce RTX 3070 EAGLE OC 8G rev 2.0 features Nvidia's RTX 3070 GPU clocked at 1725 Mhz, with 8GB of GDDR6 memory. It is now shipping at $1,199.

Researchers at Graphene-XT have developed a new graphene-based lubricating oil additive for diesel and petrol engines in cars or motorcycles.

By introducing graphene into a lubricating oil, Graphene-XT found that both its performance and stability improved, resulting in more compression and less wear and tear in the engine parts of both cars and motorcycles.

Gigabyte announced its latest gaming graphic card, the Radeon RX 6800 GAMING OC 16G. The new device uses a graphene-enhanced lubricant for its fan.

Gigabyte says that its "Graphene nano lubricant" extends the lifetime of the fan by 2.1 times, almost like a double ball bearing design - and it also makes the fab quieter compared to the company's previous design.