The Graphene-Info newsletter (April 2015)
Published: Mon, 05/04/15
Sunvault presents next-gen graphene supercapacitors |
Representatives of The Canadian Sunvault recently attended the Wall Street Conference in Florida where they presented a 1000 farad graphene supercapacitor. This is claimed by the company to be the largest graphene supercapacitor developed to date and a technology that will in the future compete with, if not potentially replace, the lithium battery. The company's CEO was quoted at the conference: "Currently the cost to manufacture a lithium battery is about $500 (USD) per/ kWh. Tesla recently announced a Super Factory to be built in Nevada, with a promise to get the price of lithium batteries down to $150 USD per kWh by 2020, our current cost estimated for this type of graphene based supercapacitor is about $100 per kWh today and we feel confident we should be able to cut this pricing in half by the end of 2015". The company also displayed the ability to 3D print device parts, which could significantly reduce manufacturing costs.
The rapid charging ability should impact the smart phone, electric car, power grid stabilization and home off the grid markets and result in a veritable revolution in these fields. The Company is also looking at additional JV opportunities for the deployment of Graphene base heating and power storage systems, and has started to look for areas to set up manufacturing for products that are ready market-ready.
Is Coronene the secret to low cost graphene CVD synthesis? |
Researchers from Shanghai report that Coronene can be used as nucleation seeds for graphene synthesis using a low temperature CVD process. The Coronene greatly improved the homogeneity of monolayer graphene and adding Coronene to the CVD process may offer cost advantages for large scale applications and higher quality graphene sheets. This process may also help with synthesizing graphene/copper hybrid interconnects.
Coronene is now offered in high quality (97% purity) and relatively low cost online at The Graphene Supermarket. As this material may prove to be an interesting path towards low-cost high-quality graphene synthesis, it will be interesting to see if researchers and/or commercial companies adopt Coronene in their process.
Graphene to create innovative supercapacitors |
Researchers at UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute have successfully combined laser-scribed graphene and manganese dioxide (which is currently used in alkaline batteries since it holds a lot of charge and is cheap and abundant) to create a new energy storage device with outstanding qualities. The new hybrid supercapacitor stores large amounts of energy, recharges quickly, and can last for more than 10,000 recharge cycles.
Scientists develop graphene-based ultrafast photodetector |
Researchers from the ICFO, ICREA, MIT and UC Riverside, have now demonstrated how a graphene-based photodetector converts absorbed light into an electrical voltage at an extremely high speed. The efficient conversion of light into electricity is crucial to various technologies, from cameras to solar cells. It can also play a part in data communication applications, since it allows information to be carried by light and converted into electrical information that can be processed in electrical circuits.
Graphene-based SuperSand aims to replace activated carbon |
Ionic Industries, a subsidiary of Strategic Energy Resources, announced the completion of an independent marketing report on the potential of its graphene-based SuperSand product. This product is meant to be a potential substitute for activated carbon and can offer equal or better performance at a lower (or at least comparable) cost.
The report yielded positive findings that support the company's decision to make SuperSand the first of its products to be produced by its planned graphene oxide manufacturing pilot plant, for which an engineering study is almost complete (with commencement of construction of the pilot plant planned for later in 2015).
Graphene-aluminum battery holds promise |
Researchers at Stanford University developed a new battery technology based on graphene and aluminum. The team claims that their aluminum battery has a number of advantages over lithium: it's flexible, can be charged in a minute instead of hours and is very durable. it's also cheaper and non-reactive (meaning compromising it will not result in sparks like lithium batteries).
Graphene foam (made by creating a metal foam, then catalyzing graphene formation on its surface) was used as cathode material and aluminum foil as the anode. While this granted better performance (7,500 cycles, much more than the 1,000 expected from a Li-ion battery), the voltage provided by an aluminum-ion battery is only about half of that what you'd get from a lithium-ion cell. Also, the overall power density (the amount of power you can store in a battery in relation to its size) is still insufficient.
Top Graphene News |
FGV sets to have graphene plant in Malaysia and become largest Asian graphene producer
Malaysian-based Felda Global Ventures Holdings (FGV) aims to set up a graphene plant in the country within two years and become the largest graphene materials producer in Asia. FGV Executive Vice-President of the Palm Downstream Cluster said that the RM15 million (around 4,080,000 USD) plant is expected to have a production capacity of 9 kilogramme of graphene per day.
Scientists manage to 3D print graphene aerogels with tailored architectures
Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory created graphene aerogel microlattices with an engineered architecture using a 3D printing technique known as direct ink writing. These lightweight aerogels have high surface area, excellent electrical conductivity, mechanical stiffness and exhibit supercompressibility (up to 90% compressive strain).
Saint Jean Carbon enters the graphene market
Saint Jean Carbon is a publicly traded junior mining exploration company with graphite mining claims on five properties located in Canada. It has recently signed an initial Letter of Intent (LOI) with Graphenea to act as the distributor of a wide range of graphene products marketed to customers across the Canadian market.
Unique graphene inks may open the door to 3D printing body parts and electronics
Researchers at Northwestern University developed a solution-based graphene ink that can be 3D-printed under ambient conditions via simple extrusion into arbitrarily shaped, electrically conductive, mechanically resilient and biocompatible scaffolds with filaments ranging in diameter from 100 to 1000 µm. The resulting material is very flexible, can be easily printed into small or large scale (multiple centimeters) objects, and may hold the potential for printing electronics as well as body
parts.
Directa Plus secures €5.5 million funding
The Italian Directs Plus announced receiving a grant of €5.5 million to finance the company. The company, which has been around for ten years and recently finalized a pre-IPO financing, declared that it is no longer a start-up but a technology company that aims to speed up development and continue international growth.
Grafoid to purchase Ames Rubber to gain foothold in the rubber and plastics market
The Canadian Grafoid aims to purchase the Germany-based Ames Rubber Corp. by June 30th. Grafoid representative says that the purpose in acquiring Ames is to broaden the company's opportunities by bringing its Mesograf graphene materials into an established, high-value market through a diverse range of elastomeric materials, working with an experienced team of engineers and scientists. Grafoid also states that Ames might be its springboard into the $700 billion rubber and plastics market.
NanoXplore starts to produce graphene oxide in industrial quantities
NanoXplore announced that it is producing Graphene Oxide in industrial quantities. The Graphene Oxide is being produced in the same 3 metric tonne per year facility used to manufacture NanoXplore's standard graphene grades and derivative products such as a unique graphite-graphene composite suitable for anodes in Li-ion batteries.
A cheap and easy way to make "crumpled" graphene may benefit electronics and energy devices
Researchers at the University of Illinois designed a single-step method for creating textures in graphene ("crumpling") to allow for larger surface areas, thus tapping into graphene's benefits for electronics. The scientists believe that "crumpled" graphene may also be used as high surface area electrodes for batteries and supercapacitors. As a coating layer, the 3D graphene could allow omniphobic/anti-bacterial surfaces for advanced coating applications.
Australian scientists design a graphene 3D pop-up floating display
Researchers at Australia's Swinburn University of Technology designed a graphene-based technique to create a 3D pop-up floating display. The scientists created nanoscale pixels of refractive index (the measure of the bending of light as it passes through a medium) made of reduced graphene oxide in a process that does not involve heat, which they say is important for the subsequent recording of the individual pixels for holograms and naked-eye 3D viewing.
Perpetuus to collaborate with Haraeus to launch new range of pastes
The UK-based Perpetuus Advanced Materials announced an exclusive commercial agreement with Heraeus. As part of the collaboration, Heraeus has completed quality control and customer feedback exercises based on Perpetuus nano carbon, low temperature, high conductivity, functionalized graphene-based inks. Along with Perpetuus, Heraeus will now launch the new range of high quality, cost effective pastes. Production is set to commence immediately.
Graphene oxide augments a composite that can encourage bone repair
Indian researchers showed that graphene oxide nanoflakes can enhance the properties of artificial composites to provide supportive scaffolds that encourage bone repair. The team cultured mesenchymal cells, which can differentiate into various types of tissue, and monitored the differentiation of these cells into bone. They found that graphene oxide flakes expedited the multiplication of stem cells and encouraged differentiation into bone tissue cells.
Vittoria reveals plans to launch new graphene-based tires and wins commercialization award
Vittoria Industries recently declared plans to launch a full range of graphene-enhanced road race and MTB tires around next September. The company also won the IDTechEx printed electronics europe 2015 award for "best commercialization", for using graphene in their bicycle wheels and tires. The company used pure and high grade graphene of 3 to 7 layers from Directa Plus.
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