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Nixene Journal Volume 9 Issue 5 Article 37
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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 6 Issue 6
A sustainable economy is a major aspiration for governments and corporations alike. As we head into the future recycling and upcycling of materials is a major part of this. In principle, plastics should be relatively straightforward to recycle. In practise this is quite challenging because different types of plastics are often bonded together, to achieve different performance criteria, and often end up in waste dumps at the end of the product’s life because these bonded composites are often impossible to recycle. The Ford Motor Company has been making progress addressing this challenge with Prof James Tour’s team at Rice University in the USA. A few days ago, they published the results of their joint work (p.14). They have proved that a variety of waste plastics from end-of-life vehicles can be made into flash graphene powder. The flash graphene was used to make new graphene enhanced polymers which had better mechanical performance, so this can be considered as a prime example of upcycling rather than recycling, (upcycling is the process of converting a material into a new resource of higher quality, value and increased functionality). Ford and Rice are creating an important chapter in the graphene story with this work. Two new two-dimensional (2D) materials have been created for the first time this month. In 2012, a new 2D allotrope (a new form) of carbon called graphyne was thought to be possible to make and some of its properties were predicted. A decade later, a team of chemists at the University of Colorado has actually made small amounts of the material for the first time (p.15). The other new 2D materials are called transition metal carbo-chalcogenides, more easily termed TMCCs. These have been made by a joint team in the USA and Sweden. TMCCs have a combination of electrical conductivity and stability that make them attractive candidates for electronics and energy storage applications. The manufacturing process is also relatively straightforward and scaleable in comparison with similar materials and this could make them a viable commercial proposition in the future. Returning to the sustainability theme; this month, UK graphene manufacturer Levidian Nanosystems Ltd. announced a £700 million deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to supply 500 of its graphene production units. This will capture half a million tonnes of CO2 equivalents (CO2e) over the next five years. The system works by turning methane gas into graphene. The graphene is almost a by-product in this case. The most logical use will be to further reduce CO2 emissions by using the graphene to enhance concrete for many construction projects in the UAE. Graphene is certainly making an impact right where it is needed most – furthering the sustainability agenda, you can find out more by reading on… Adrian Nixon 1st June 2022£45.00 View product -
Vol 6 Issue 9
Andre Geim’s work appears twice in this issue. He has been working with researchers in China and developed a straightforward method of recovering metallic gold from e-waste. This starts with an e-waste liquid stream where the precious metals have been dissolved in acid. Reduced graphene oxide powder (rGO) is mixed with this waste stream. rGO is composed of nanoplates with oxygen containing groups around the edges and a graphene surface in the middle. The groups round the edge help the nanoplate mix with the water in the waste and the graphene surface attracts and reduces the gold ions in solution to solid gold metal. It is surprisingly straightforward. The process is also extremely efficient, recovering nearly 100% of the gold even when vanishingly small amounts of gold is present. Andre was also interviewed by Forbes magazine this month. He was asked how he manages to be so innovative when others are less so. He replied that having a wide range of interests was a key part of his success: “Too many people move from scientific cradle to scientific coffin without deviation” …and went on to say: “You have to enrich yourself, to improve your chances to find something new and interesting that other people didn't find before” Not only a recipe for success in science but a good philosophy for making our own luck for the rest of us too. Elsewhere in this issue, articles cover topics such as the renewed investor interest in graphene companies. Over £11million has been invested in graphene companies this month. Researchers have turned graphene into diamond, and others have been discovering more about the electrical properties of twisted layer graphene. In Malaysia, the traditional industry of natural rubber harvesting is exploring creating high altitude balloons made with graphene enhanced rubber to launch satellites into low earth orbit. Quite a leap forward. Read on and enrich yourselves… Adrian Nixon 1st September 2022£45.00 View product -
Vol 6 Issue 10
Dear reader, you will know that we are tracking the progress of the biggest graphene companies in the world. Levidian is the biggest on paper with their announced £700 million ($780 m USD) contract with the UAE (vol 6 iss 6 p.26). The other company is Skeleton Technologies who make graphene enhanced supercapacitors for transport systems. They have been making steady progress over the past few years and have now announced a new €220 million ($215 m USD) super factory that will open in Germany in 2024. This will give the company an order of magnitude increase in production capacity (p.32 of this issue). Skeleton have also announced they have been awarded the contract to supply supercapacitors for the latest metro units in the Spanish city of Grenada (p.22). Further industrial progress is being made in the USA. Cardea Bio is a manufacturer of graphene field effect transistor biosensors. Essentially these are lab-on-a-chip devices that will give an instant read out of medical conditions from a sample of body fluids. The company has mastered the art of mass production and its factories can produce up to 20,000 graphene sensors per month. They also report that next year they will have produced their millionth biosensor. This company is shaping up to be a formidable presence in the graphene biosensor market. On the research and technical side, there has been much progress in the quality control of graphene. Terrance Barkan convened a webinar of metrology experts from world class institutions in the UK, USA and South America. The Raman spectroscopy masterclass is well worth viewing if you need to understand how the quality of graphene is measured by this technique and its limitations (p.15). By coincidence this month researchers in India have developed a new technique for reliably measuring the number of layers of graphene in a sample. Rather than use an expensive raman spectrometer, they have found a much cheaper optical microscope can provide similar information (p.17). In the UK, researchers have published a literature review of sustainable fibres for polymer composites. The work clearly shows why sustainable natural fibres are not being adopted to replace synthetic fibres. Natural fibres are an order of magnitude weaker than their synthetic counterparts. There is room for optimism though. The study shows that graphene can enhance the strength of natural fibres in polymer composites and shows there is one primary candidate natural fibre that, with graphene, just might challenge the supremacy of synthetic fibres (p.18). You can find out about this and much more in this fascinating issue. Dear reader, I invite you to read on… Adrian Nixon 1st October 2022£45.00 View product
