THE GRAPHENE AGE IS UPON US

The word “super material” is overused. But one super material dwarfs them all. It’s about to revolutionize aviation, space, composites, supercapacitors, sensors, 3D printing, energy storage, medicine, solar cells and nanotechnology … to name just a few. It’s called ‘graphene’, and it is the genesis of the modern boom in materials science.

Graphene may be the most disruptive material of all time. It is the lightest, strongest, thinnest, best thermal- and electricity-conducting material ever discovered.

GRAPHENE’S UNIQUE QUALITIES

  • Strength (150,000,000 psi) – 200x stronger than steel
  • Flexibility – bendable
  • Thin – 1 million times thinner than a sheet of paper
  • Light – a 1 gram sheet would cover a soccer field
  • Heat conductivity – best material for carrying heat
  • Electrical conductivity – nearly perfect conductor
  • Electronic properties – electrons move through graphene at close to the speed of light
  • Invisibility – transmits 97% of light (glass window transmits 80%-90%)
  • Impermeability – enables water filtration and purification


Watch this introduction to Graphene by Mikael Fogelström | TEDxGöteborg

“Adding 0.01%-0.50% to other materials can drastically improve their properties.” – G6 Materials Corp.

TYPES OF GRAPHENE

“Flakes” & “sheets” are primarily used in most (but different) commercial applications

  • Two relatively minor types of graphene are “ribbons” & “powders”
  • Nanoplatelets lack typical properties of graphene & are not relevant to our market
  • Typically graphene oxide (GO) & reduced graphene oxide (rGO) have too many defects and do not possess many of graphene’s unique, desirable properties

Sheets are expensive to produce, use toxic chemicals, costly substrates & hard-to-control process parameters. Separating the sheet from the substrate can damage its structure & negatively affect its properties.

Flakes have an immediate market use to enhance a vast number of products & to create new products.