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A manufacturing process that produces long strips of high-quality graphene

news.mit.edu

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Re: A manufacturing process that produces long strips of high-quality graphene

#11

Post by mrfusion »

AChamarthy wrote: post #7

Many applications of Graphene are already on the market (ex. lighter and stiffer bicycle frames, bicycle tires, sports equipment, electronic inks and paints etc). However, these are based on lower quality Graphene powders or nanoplatelets (essentially a commodity at this point) which are used as an additive to a starting epoxy or resin material. Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) is the method used to produce the highes…

How do these low quality graphene products you mentioned compare to carbon fiber?

And How does graphene compare to carbon fiber in general? Will we make airplanes and spacecraft out of it someday?

Re: A manufacturing process that produces long strips of high-quality graphene

#12

Post by AChamarthy »

mrfusion wrote: post #11
AChamarthy wrote: post #7

Many applications of Graphene are already on the market (ex. lighter and stiffer bicycle frames, bicycle tires, sports equipment, electronic inks and paints etc). However, these are based on lower quality Graphene powders or nanoplatelets (essentially a commodity at this point) which are used as an additive to a starting epoxy or resin material. Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) is the method used to produce the highes…

How do these low quality graphene products you mentioned compare to carbon fiber? And How does graphene compare to carbon fiber in general? Will we make airplanes and spacecraft out of it someday?

Vs. Carbon Fiber, it depends on the application and intended use case

Re: aerospace, from a recent report, "Graphene can give multifunctional benefits to composites, including increased mechanical properties and conductivity. To protect against lightning strikes, the composite structures of aircraft contain metal meshes or have embedded conduc- tive wires. Graphene-containing composites could provide lightning-strike protection with the advantage of a simplified production process and weight reduction.

This year, a team comprising engineers and scientists from Airbus, Aernnova and Grupo Antolin have developed a prototype aircraft component using a graphene- based composite material. A section of the horizontal tail plane leading edge (HTPLE) of the Airbus A350 XWB was manufactured using industry standard resin transfer moulding of a graphene-based composite. The performance of this prototype compo- nent will be validated through electrical, mechanical and impact testing during the Core 2 phase."

Re: A manufacturing process that produces long strips of high-quality graphene

#13

Post by ChuckMcM »

One of the applications for graphene membranes that I am watching for are large scale desalination plants. It has been shown to work for small membranes and if you had enough surface area you could build a desalinator that was using not much more energy than the energy to pump the water around.

Re: A manufacturing process that produces long strips of high-quality graphene

#15

Post by agumonkey »

AChamarthy wrote: post #7

Many applications of Graphene are already on the market (ex. lighter and stiffer bicycle frames, bicycle tires, sports equipment, electronic inks and paints etc). However, these are based on lower quality Graphene powders or nanoplatelets (essentially a commodity at this point) which are used as an additive to a starting epoxy or resin material. Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) is the method used to produce the highes…

How large is the "crowd" in the field (companies, research labs, conferences) ?

Re: A manufacturing process that produces long strips of high-quality graphene

#16

Post by jws »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #13

One of the applications for graphene membranes that I am watching for are large scale desalination plants. It has been shown to work for small membranes and if you had enough surface area you could build a desalinator that was using not much more energy than the energy to pump the water around.

It looks like maybe a factor of 3 or so energy efficiency improvement is available for desalination. Current efficient processes are around 3kWh/m³†. The thermodynamic limit is about 1kWh/m³‡. That can be improved a little if you pump more seawater, there is a tradeoff there.

Treatment of fresh water is around 1kWh/m³, so it gets into the ballpark for freshwater treatment, though I presume some of the freshwater treatment needs to be performed on the desalinated seawater.

This places seawater as an equal to river or lake water for watering humans, but still expensive for watering crops; at 1kWh/m³, there would be about $1.50 of water in a $3.50 bushel of corn.

␄

† wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Energy_consumptio...

‡ About page 12 of this presentation: http://www.nwri-usa.org/documents/Elimelech_000.pdf

Re: A manufacturing process that produces long strips of high-quality graphene

#17

Post by logicallee »

AChamarthy wrote: post #7

Many applications of Graphene are already on the market (ex. lighter and stiffer bicycle frames, bicycle tires, sports equipment, electronic inks and paints etc). However, these are based on lower quality Graphene powders or nanoplatelets (essentially a commodity at this point) which are used as an additive to a starting epoxy or resin material. Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) is the method used to produce the highes…

Thanks for making this very informative comment! It was very interesting.

Can you give an insider's perspective on graphene's supercapacitor applications, if any? What does it mean in practice?

I realize given your disclaimer at the end if there are those kinds of applications you will want to promote them versus listing shortcomings, but if you would at least allude to the shortcomings too I would really appreciate the honesty: I saw a lot of articles about its supercap applications when graphene began to be synthesized but haven't heard much since (and it's not in your short list in your first sentence at all).

Re: A manufacturing process that produces long strips of high-quality graphene

#19

Post by NegativeLatency »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #18

How would you dispose of this stuff? I presume it doesn't decompose. Mind you, there's not high volume any time soon. I only curious about lifecycle.

It should burn pretty cleanly (as it's just carbon), but who knows what it would be mixed with in an actual application. Could be mixed with all kinds of plastics and resins that are nasty when burnt.

Re: A manufacturing process that produces long strips of high-quality graphene

#20

Post by JoeAltmaier »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #18

How would you dispose of this stuff? I presume it doesn't decompose. Mind you, there's not high volume any time soon. I only curious about lifecycle.

Essentially paper with microscopic layer of 'ink' on it. Easier to dispose of than office paper I think.
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