Roll to roll

First Graphene has secured an agreement with Halocell Energy to supply graphene for the manufacture of perovskite solar cells.

The initial two-year agreement will result in First Graphene providing its PureGRAPH material to Halocell for use as a high-performing coating for perovskite solar cells. By incorporating PureGRAPH into its products, Halocell Energy hopes to expedite its manufacturing process and enhance light absorbing performance, which will enable the company to scale up commercial production to meet demand.

Researchers at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have developed advanced graphene membranes with pyridinic-nitrogen at pore edges, reportedly showing unprecedented performance in CO₂ capture. This could mark a step towards more efficient carbon capture technologies.

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is a technology that reduces carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from hard-to-abate industrial sources such as power plants, cement factories, steel mills, and waste incinerators. But current capture methods rely on energy-intensive processes, which makes them costly and unsustainable. Researchers are working to develop membranes that can selectively capture CO₂ with high efficiency, thereby reducing the energy and financial costs associated with CCUS. But even state-of-the-art membranes, such as polymer thin films, are limited in terms of CO₂ permeance and selectivity, which limits their scalability. So, the challenge is to create membranes that can simultaneously offer high CO₂ permeance and selectivity, crucial for effective carbon capture.

Researchers at Fraunhofer FEP have developed a PECVD process that enables deposition of graphene at high process speeds and on a wider range of substrates at lower temperatures.

As part of the funded EU project NewSkin, the Fraunhofer Institute for Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP has developed the innovative PECVD process that enables the deposition of graphene at high process speeds and offers higher production throughputs and a wider range of substrates at lower process temperatures. The researchers will present the process at Manufacturing World Tokyo from June 19 - 21, 2024 at booth No. E 53-11 in Tokyo, Japan.

US-based CVD graphene developer General Graphene Corporation (GGC) has launched its new Gen3.0 CVD graphene production line. This 20-meters long roll-to-roll based system can produce single- and multi-layer graphene materials on copper films up to 400 mm wide.

GGC says that with the new line, its manufacturing capacity exceeds 100,000 m²/year. The company is now able to supply affordable and highly consistent CVD graphene in industrial volumes.

Korea-based Charmgraphene has started to mass produce CVD graphene, using its proprietary roll-to-roll process.

CharmGraphene's graphene on copper and heating element

CharmGraphene's R2R production system can produce 2 meters of CVD graphene per minute (maximum width 300 mm). According to CharmGraphene, its current CVD graphene capacity is about 8,000 sqm per month. The company says it uses use 6 um thick copper foil which reduces copper foil etching time dramatically compare to 35 um thickness copper foil used by other companies.

Researchers at MIT have developed a new roll-to-roll production process for large sheets of high-quality graphene, which the team says could lead to ultra-lightweight, flexible solar cells, and to new classes of light-emitting devices and other thin-film electronics.

The new manufacturing process, which the team says should be relatively easy to scale up for industrial production, involves an intermediate buffer layer of material that is key to the technique’s success. The buffer allows the ultrathin graphene sheet, less than a nanometer (billionth of a meter) thick, to be easily lifted off from its substrate, allowing for rapid roll-to-roll manufacturing.

According to our information, LG Electronics is aiming to start supplying CVD graphene materials worldwide soon, with an aim to accelerate the adoption of CVD graphene in various applications. LG is collaborating with research groups to identify new applications for graphene sheets.

LG Electronics developed its own roll-to-roll production process in addition to a specific quality control system for its graphene. LG says that its inspection system can manage uniformity deviations in crystal size, defects and electrical properties in its graphene to within 10%.

Scientists from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a cost-efficient and scalable method for rapidly fabricating textiles that are embedded with energy storage devices. The team reports that in just three minutes, the method can produce a 10x10cm smart textile patch that's waterproof, stretchable and readily integrated with energy technologies like graphene supercapacitors, laser printed directly onto the textiles.

As a proof-of-concept, the researchers connected the supercapacitor with a solar cell, delivering an efficient, washable and self-powering smart fabric that overcomes the key drawbacks of existing e-textile energy storage technologies.

AIXTRON recently showcased two of its systems, which enable cost effective graphene production for a myriad of applications such as consumer electronics, sensors and photonic applications.

AIXTRON's new 'Neutron' roll to roll system for the production of graphene. Credit: AIXTRON

Graphene Flagship partner AIXTRON introduced results from two of its systems that enable the large-scale production of graphene through chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The Neutron is a roll-to-roll system capable of depositing large areas of graphene on metal foils under ambient conditions; and the CCS 2D system enables wafer-scale production of graphene on insulating wafers, a breakthrough that could speed up the development of new graphene electronics.

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.