Mechanical strength - Page 4

Researchers at The University of Alabama used graphene to fabricate a lighter car hood, as part of an attempt to reduce the weight of a Chevrolet Camaro. The new hood is made of a mixture of graphene and carbon fiber, as opposed to the original hood which is made of aluminum.

The hood is half the weight of the original hood, a crucial adjustment as a larger team of students work to turn the Camaro into a plug-in hybrid as part of a national contest called EcoCAR 3.

In a recent speech, Virgin Atlantic president Sir Richard Branson raised the prospect of planes being made entirely from graphene within 10 years. Counting on graphene's mechanical strength and light nature, he hopes the aerospace industry could welcome light, durable planes that will cut fuel expenses, among other advantages.

He was quoted saying "hopefully graphene can be the planes of the future. 10 years down the line. They would be massively lighter than the current planes, which again would make a difference on fuel burn." Branson likened the push for graphene planes to urging Airbus and Boeing to make planes from carbon fibre, a battle he won. Boeing's latest 787 Dreamliner planes are made from 50% carbon fibre and other composite materials, as opposed to the traditional 100% aluminium. They use 30% less fuel than their standard alternatives.

Researchers at Rice University have constructed a graphene foam, reinforced by carbon nanotubes, that can support more than 3,000 times its own weight and bounce back to its original height. In addition, its shape and size are easily controlled - which the team demonstrated by creating a screw-shaped piece of the material.

The 3D structures were created from a powdered nickel catalyst, surfactant-wrapped multiwall nanotubes and sugar as a carbon source. The materials were mixed and the water evaporated; the resulting pellets were pressed into a steel die and then heated in a chemical vapor deposition furnace, which turned the available carbon into graphene. After further processing to remove remnants of nickel, the result was an all-carbon foam in the shape of the die, in this case a screw. The team said the method will be easy to scale up.

Ionic Industries is an Australia-based graphene developer that was spun-off from Strategic Energy Resources (SER still holds 20% in Ionic) in 2015. Ionic Developed a proprietary Graphene Oxide production process and is developing GO-based materials and applications.

Simon Savage, Ionic's Managing Director, was kind enough to discuss the company's technology and the status of Ionic's GO applications.

Researchers at MIT have designed a strong and lightweight material, by compressing and fusing flakes of graphene. The new material, a sponge-like configuration with a density of just 5%, can have a strength 10 times that of steel. This work could pose an interesting way of transforming graphene into useful 3D objects and items.

The team developed the product by using a combination of both heat and pressure, compressing and fusing the flakes of graphene together. This process produced a strong, stable structure whose form resembles that of some corals and microscopic creatures called diatoms. These shapes, which have an enormous surface area in proportion to their volume, proved to be remarkably strong.

Graphene Flagship partner IIT, in collaboration with Italian design company Momodesign, announced the development of a graphene-coated motorcycle helmet that reportedly allows better distribution of impact force. This makes the helmet less susceptible to damage compared to helmets without graphene, even in high temperatures. The result is described as a helmet that improves thermal comfort as well as safety.

In the new helmet, graphene is added into the outer shell as a coating, providing a protective effect to the inner materials of the helmet. This effect was described as a graphene "shelter": the excellent heat-conductive properties of graphene dissipate heat quickly across the helmet, and protect the inner materials from degradation caused by heat.

Researchers at Tsinghua University in China have shown that feeding silkworms mulberry leaves sprayed with an aqueous solution containing a 0.2% (by weight) graphene or carbon nanotubes can result in reinforced silk that could be used in applications like durable protective fabrics, biodegradable medical implants, and wearable electronics.

This carbon-enhanced silk is said to be twice as tough as regular silks, and can withstand at least 50% higher stress before breaking. The team heated the silk fibers at 1,050 °C to carbonize the silk protein and then studied their conductivity and structure. The modified silks conduct electricity, unlike regular silk. Raman spectroscopy and electron microscopy imaging showed that the carbon-enhanced silk fibers had a more ordered crystal structure due to the incorporated nanomaterials.

Researchers from Seoul National University and the University of Manchester have found that a graphene coating on biological samples helps dissipate the charge build-up that tends to occur on the surface of these samples during non-destructive electron microscopy imaging. Such build-ups are often damaging and prevent high-resolution images from being obtained.

Currently used gold or platinum coatings mean that researchers cannot obtain high-resolution images of the samples or perform further quantitative and qualitative chemical analyses with techniques such as energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Now, the research team discovered that a layer of graphene on biological samples can dissipate the charge accumulation on the non-conducting surfaces of biological samples thanks to the high electrical conductivity of graphene. The researchers explain that as soon as excessive charges appear on the sample surfaces, the graphene membrane provides conducting channels for these charges to disappear quickly and so allows to obtain high-resolution EM images. Furthermore, the high thermal conductivity of graphene allows it to dissipate excess heat produced by the high-energy electrons in the microscope, thus preventing thermal damage or deformation of biological specimens as well.

Researchers at Manchester University have shown that a graphene hydraulic ‘nano-press’ is capable of creating new two-dimensional materials by exerting extreme pressure on compounds sealed between layers of graphene. This new use of graphene could prove to be a novel way of creating versatile 2D materials which have unique properties and benefits for a wide range of applications.

The graphene nano-press is made possible due to graphene's unique properties. As is stronger than diamond, the extreme amount of pressure can be exerted on trapped molecules without breaking the graphene layers. The two stacked layers also create a self-sealing envelope around the trapped molecules to contain them. The researchers say that the molecules that are trapped between two layers of graphene experience pressures equivalent of 10,000 times the air pressure in a bicycle tyre; This acts as a nano scale pressure cooker which works at room temperature.

I recently had an interesting talk with XG Sciences' Sr. Director of Business Development, Dr. Percy Chinoy. Percy updated on XGS' technology and business. Among several other applications of graphene, XGS has been collaborating with battery developers and their supply chain partners for a few years.

XGS is involved in three battery-related applications: silicon-graphene electrodes, and graphene additives in Li-Ion battery and Lead-acid battery electrodes. As a supplier, XGS has to work with the product schedules of other companies - but XGS is positive that we will see these products being launched in 2017.