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Nixene Journal Volume 9 Issue 5 Article 34
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Vol 5 Issue 12
Two new graphene companies have appeared on the radar this month. They both use a similar process to make graphene from methane gas with hydrogen as a by-product. Looking at the patents of the companies they both use a microwave reactor to tear apart the carbon and hydrogen atoms in methane, the carbon atoms recombine as graphene and the hydrogen atoms recombine to form hydrogen gas. There the similarities pause because the two companies have very different approaches for how to market their developments. The first company is Levidian, they are a relaunch of Cambridge Nanosystems from the UK. Their business model is focussed on using waste methane gas from a customer’s process. They use the reactor to lock up the carbon in the methane as graphene and claim carbon capture credits. The graphene production is secondary to this marketing approach. Using disclosures by the company, I was able to create a mass balance for the Levidian method. It appears that the process captures carbon from methane with around 30% efficiency (p.34). Not bad, but still some further progress to make. The second company is California based Lyten who publicly disclosed their activity just a few weeks ago. They were formed in 2015 and have been operating in stealth mode. Their graphene is used to make the electrode for a lithium sulphur (LiS) battery that has three times the energy density of normal lithium-ion batteries (p.35). They have probably decided to come out of stealth mode to raise capital for the scaling up of their process. The company is currently talking with five original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the automobile industry. The weakness of LiS batteries has been their capacity fade with repeated charge / discharge cycles. Lyten say they have improved on previous LiS designs so they might have something of interest for manufacturers of electric vehicles. Levidian patented their process in 2014 and Lyten in 2015. Lyten references the Levidian patents in their applications. This is how we know the two processes are very similar. Things could get interesting if one or the other company makes a lot of money in the future. As Elon Musk observed “A patent is like buying a lottery ticket to a lawsuit”. Staying with graphene powder manufacture, we feature John van Leeuwen of Universal Matter in a special feature (p.7). He is leading the drive to scale up the flash graphene process developed by Prof James Tour at Rice University. Universal Matter is definitely a company to watch in the future. All these graphene manufacturing processes are bottom-up, self-assembling graphene atom by atom to create high quality powders. These processes are in their infancy at present. If they can be scaled, they could disrupt the graphene-from-graphite manufacturers in future as they promise controllable quality graphene. This potential market disruption is something we’ll explore in the future, in the meantime there is much more to explore in this issue… Adrian Nixon, 1st December 2021£45.00 View product -
Vol 5 Issue 2
Regular readers will be aware of my view that the field of graphene is moving faster than anyone realises. More evidence supporting this emerged this month. A team at Penn State university in the USA has been working on experiments with passing sound waves through sheets of graphene with precise holes drilled in hexagonal patterns. They made the acoustic analogue of twisted bilayer graphene and found the acoustic equivalent of the magic angle. So, as well as twistronics for electrons we now have phononics for sound waves in twisted bilayer graphene, and probably other 2D materials. A new field of scientific study made possible by graphene the progress really is astonishing. The US Government is starting to wake up to the power of graphene. James Tour’s flash graphene is attracting the attention. The team now can take the waste char from plastic recycling and turn it in to graphene that improves the strength of cement by 30%. Rice University says the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Department of Energy supported the research. Trade magazines in the construction sector are also picking up on this. Another development by James Tour; Laser induced graphene is being used to make biosensors that detect and diagnose SARS-CoV-2 in blood and saliva samples. The test links to a smartphone and produces results in ten minutes. More work is being done with graphene supercapacitors. It looks like increasing the surface area of graphene nanoplates by increasing the separation between the nanoplates increases the energy density. Cross linking the nanoplates with a big molecule that is also electrically conductive improves the supercapacitor performance still further. Computer graphics card manufacturer, Gigabyte, has launched a new high end gaming card. Graphene is being used to improve the cooling performance, interestingly not using the thermal properties, but using graphene as a lubricant. Investors seem to be taking a more active interest in graphene companies. Ionic, the Australian supercapacitor manufacturer has received $2million to develop its manufacturing operation. In the UK Versarien has raised another £3.5million and Applied Graphene Materials has raised £6million in cash by selling more shares. This gives both companies some financial breathing room but also raises the pressure to deliver revenue growth. And there is lots more of interest in this packed issue. Adrian Nixon, 1st February 2021£45.00 View product -
Vol 5 Issue 3
Graphene and 2D materials are still creating scientific progress and the pace is if anything speeding up. You may recall from 2018 that MIT discovered twisted bilayer graphene displayed superconductivity. Andre Geim said this was a genuine surprise when we interviewed him at the Graphene industry showcase event (Vol 4 Iss1 p.8). Well, the MIT team have been exploring this field of twistronics and have now found that using trilayer twisted graphene creates more robust superconductivity at slightly higher temperatures. This points the researchers towards more layers of graphene. Maybe people will start to realise multilayer sheet graphene is much more than graphite. In another development, liquid mercury has been turned into a solid by graphene and the resulting composite has promise for making a new generation of catalysts that could replace more expensive noble metals such as platinum and gold. This finding might also create the possibility to remove liquid mercury contamination from oil and gas processing. Sparc technologies in Australia has some profile this month. They have developed a functionalised graphene with the University of Adelaide. This is showing promise for land remediation and also early work is showing it has some value adsorbing precious metals from mining waste. Sustainability applications like these attract our attention, especially if followed by commercial success. Swedish company 2D fab is working on a project with Swedish research institutes to commercialise a new process for making hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) using graphene paper electrodes. H2O2 is an important industrial product used for bleaching and is an important ingredient in many consumer products. The current process for making H2O2 is energy intensive and creates waste. This new process promises to be lower energy without waste and is more environmentally sustainable. The project should complete by April 2023. Keeping the sustainability theme this month, we also see that the GEIC has started to engage with graphene enhanced concrete, This is really good news. Regular readers will know that we believe graphene in concrete will eventually become the biggest application because it has the potential to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by 2% with very little impact on our lifestyles. A message that perhaps might reach the ears of those attending the UN Climate Chance conference later this year. As usual there is so much more to explore in this issue, including two special features by Debbie Nelson that are well worth reading. Adrian Nixon, 1st March 2021£45.00 View product -
Vol 5 Issue 4
I need to start this month’s issue with a correction. In the last issue (Vol 5 iss 3 p.13) I stated that Kostya was moving from Singapore to Russia. Thanks to our rather well-informed readership, I have been told that Kostya is indeed taking up the position of head of the Brain and Consciousness Research Centre in Moscow, Russia. However, he is not leaving the National University of Singapore. Onward with our usual Accuracy, Brevity and Clarity. Normal ABC service resumes. This month we had a meeting with Prof. James Tour and the GEIC. Thanks Debbie. The work on Flash Graphene (FG) is advancing faster than we realised. Prof. Tour testified to Congress about the benefits graphene can bring to buildings and infrastructure in the USA. He testified to Congress in 2017 and now said “Four years later I’m here to report that the future has arrived” (see page 21). You will know that FG can be made from anything that contains carbon. Waste plastic is a favourite (Vol 4 iss 8 p.9). We learned that Flash Graphene can now also be made from furnace black, the by-product from the leading ‘green’ manufacturing process for Hydrogen (see page 22). The Rice University laboratories and spin out company, Universal Matter, are working on the production of Flash Graphene. The pace is fast. Every nine weeks doubles the scale at which FG can be made. Flash Graphene is something we’ll watch closely. If the team can continue to scale up the process it has the potential to make many other methods for making graphene powders obsolete. We have three special features this month. A review the state of the industry for manufacturing large scale sheet graphene, and interviews with two graphene company business leaders, Maví Figueres and Dylan Banks. Such is the pace of change, while we were writing the special feature, General Graphene sent samples of their monolayer and multilayer graphene to the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC). The samples will be sent to the International Space Station (ISS) for testing. We have the first pictures of these large-scale graphene samples in this issue (see page 29) It is worth noting that Graphene has gone from impossible to industrial in just 17 years. Astonishing. Other things to draw your attention to include an emerging controversy with graphene facemasks in Canada (see page 30) and new perovskite 2D materials start to feature in this issue. You’ll discover more as you read on. Adrian Nixon, 1st April 2021£45.00 View product
