6 ms·

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

257 points by fahd777 8y ago

skadamat 8y ago
Title is definitely overblown. Roll-to-roll production is still very much a small scale process. Linear change not stepwise
- GCU-Empiricist 8y ago
  That said wasn't the state of the art production previously measured in single digit square centimeters?
- rdruxn 8y ago
  This might just be my confirmation bias speaking, but MIT seems to put out a lot of moverblown and clickbait-y headlines about their research.
  - hprotagonist 8y ago
    This is the case for every press release office for every research university, I'm afraid. Some just get broader attention.
- donmatito 8y ago
  Piecemeal batch production to continuous roll-to-roll production is most definitely a step change. Continuous production allows for mass production, quality monitoring, and progressively increase in width, in a way that is not possible with batch process
AChamarthy 8y ago
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 highest quality graphene (usually on Copper). Several companies (Graphenea etc) have scaled up CVD and continue to work towards much lower $ / m^2 targets in the near future. The main challenge in the industry is currently the transfer step. Current methods to transfer Graphene from growth substrate to target substrate are inefficient and not amenable to high volume manufacturing. "Roll to Roll" (what the paper is referring to) aims to solve this - companies like Samsung, LG, and Sony have been exploring Roll to Roll systems for flexible electronics/display applications. After flexible applications, the next step is to enable CMOS compatibility / transfer to Silicon wafers. I'm the co-founder of a company in Austin that is working towards this.
- gjem97 8y ago
  > Several companies (Graphenea etc) have scaled up CVD and continue to work towards much lower $ / m^2 targets in the near future. What is the approximate commercial cost of CVD-produced graphene sheets?
  - AChamarthy 8y ago
    https://www.graphenea.com/collections/graphene-products/products/monolayer-graphene-on-cu-4-inches https://www.graphenea.com/collections/graphene-products/prod...
    - gjem97 8y ago
      Wow, cool. I imagine in volume it's within a factor of two or so of that?
- mrfusion 8y ago
  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?
  - AChamarthy 8y ago
    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."
ChuckMcM 8y ago
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.
- jws 8y ago
  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 $3.50 bushel of corn. ␄ † wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Energy_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Energy_consumptio... ‡ About page 12 of this presentation: http://www.nwri-usa.org/documents/Elimelech_000.pdf http://www.nwri-usa.org/documents/Elimelech_000.pdf
  - ChuckMcM 8y ago
    Primarily the concern was "drinking water" for people aka the urban water requirement (which includes drinking, washing, cooking, sanitation, and urban scale irrigation) I suppose it helps the seasteading picture as well but I haven't really thought much about that. Mostly if you can disconnect urban water planning from agricultural water planning it allows you to do things differently. Especially when it comes to water transport projects for coastal cities.
  - Retric 8y ago
    At ~10-15 m^3 per bushel (2000 - 3000 gallons) the lowest cost intermittent electricity is under 2c/kwh. So that's closer to 20-30 cents per 3.50$ bushel of corn for energy at minimum. Though presumably there would be many other costs on top of pure energy especially if you are not operating 24/7. https://electrek.co/2017/11/16/cheapest-electricity-on-the-planet-mexican-solar-power/ https://electrek.co/2017/11/16/cheapest-electricity-on-the-p...
cslarson 8y ago
Space elevators?
- fudged71 8y ago
  Not viable, graphene isn't strong enough.
  - DubiousPusher 8y ago
    Sources? Googling only returns a bunch of random threads with people insisting it's possible.
    - marcosdumay 8y ago
      In theory any molecule that looks like a graphite layer should be enough. In practice there are plenty of concerns about the stability of the ones that aren't rolled into tubes (and some concern about those later ones too). The result is, you'll see plenty of calculations telling it's possible. But it is probably not.
      - MertsA 8y ago
        It definitely is with a tapered cable. The only question is if it could be done practically and if it would actually be worth the hassle. The self support length is for a cylinder of the material, with a cone there isn't a limit to the maximum self support length as the base just gets as wide as necessary to support the rest of it. But with graphene it's close enough that just a 10 to 1 difference in the cross-sectional area between the top of the cable and the bottom would be structurally sufficient. Since the area scales with the square of the radius a 10 to 1 difference is only sqrt(10) larger in diameter between the top and the bottom.
        eloff 8y ago
        None of that answers whether the structural properties of graphene can be realized at the macroscopic level with such a massive cable. We don't know yet, because nobody has built something even close to that out of graphene.
chiefalchemist 8y ago
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.
- NegativeLatency 8y ago
  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.
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    It should burn with all the side products of most artificial carbon chains (aromatics and poisonous carbon oxides). Those aren't hard to deal with, but don't expect it to burn cleanly. It should also be hard to burn. It will probably require some water vapor to burn at all, and do it slowly.
    - hcknwscommenter 8y ago
      I'm not sure I understand how you arrived at your first point. It seems to me that at a suitable temperature and oxygen content atmosphere, it should burn about as clean as natural gas. Why would you expect otherwise? I also do not understand your second point. Surely, it is oxygen that is the missing ingredient in the burn rather than water vapor. What does water vapor provide to increase the rate of combustion?
      - marcosdumay 8y ago
        About the first point, you are expecting total combustion of a solid. That is hard to achieve. By your theory coal should also burn cleanly, and it evidently doesn't. With enough temperature and a high oxygen pressure, graphene will burn cleanly. But also will your furnace, and my bet is that both will do so at roughly the same temperature and pressure. About the second point, oxygen does not react well with graphite because it's entire surface does not let its electrons go very easily. Graphene has similar properties. Water does catalyze the burning of graphite, it may very well do that to graphene too.
marshray 8y ago
I stopped reading at: "composed of carbon atoms joined in a pattern that makes the material extremely tough and impervious to even the smallest atom, helium." Is helium really smaller than hydrogen?
- Lozzer 8y ago
  If you belive Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_radius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_radius then the atomic radius of Helium has never been measured, but it is predicted to be smaller than Hydrogen.
- joshuas 8y ago
  A google search says yes.
- mattchamb 8y ago
  Well, I'm not a physicist, but hydrogen gas is two atoms compared to 1 atom for helium gas.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - DrScump 8y ago
    hydrogen gas is two atoms ... which makes it a molecule.
- MertsA 8y ago
  Oddly enough yes Helium has a smaller atomic radius because the additional proton and electron complete that first electron shell and get pulled closer to the nucleus.
  - pygy_ 8y ago
    Also, atomic Hydrogen is not very common around here (nor anywhere, I suppose)... H+ and H2, on the other hand...
  - 8y ago
knicholes 8y ago
Sounds like Bill Gates may finally get his unbreakable condom.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  And if he does, it would be great. An ultra-thin, unbreakable condom would be a huge improvement both in quality-of-life and public health.
goombastic 8y ago
Next up is graphene pollution. All such new tech should also have tech that allows for natural decomposition and shouldn't probably be used until that is available as well.

257 points by fahd777 8y ago

Title is definitely overblown. Roll-to-roll production is still very much a small scale process. Linear change not stepwise

GCU-Empiricist 8y ago
That said wasn't the state of the art production previously measured in single digit square centimeters?
rdruxn 8y ago
This might just be my confirmation bias speaking, but MIT seems to put out a lot of moverblown and clickbait-y headlines about their research.
- hprotagonist 8y ago
  This is the case for every press release office for every research university, I'm afraid. Some just get broader attention.
donmatito 8y ago
Piecemeal batch production to continuous roll-to-roll production is most definitely a step change. Continuous production allows for mass production, quality monitoring, and progressively increase in width, in a way that is not possible with batch process

AChamarthy 8y ago

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 highest quality graphene (usually on Copper). Several companies (Graphenea etc) have scaled up CVD and continue to work towards much lower $ / m^2 targets in the near future. The main challenge in the industry is currently the transfer step. Current methods to transfer Graphene from growth substrate to target substrate are inefficient and not amenable to high volume manufacturing. "Roll to Roll" (what the paper is referring to) aims to solve this - companies like Samsung, LG, and Sony have been exploring Roll to Roll systems for flexible electronics/display applications. After flexible applications, the next step is to enable CMOS compatibility / transfer to Silicon wafers. I'm the co-founder of a company in Austin that is working towards this.

gjem97 8y ago
> Several companies (Graphenea etc) have scaled up CVD and continue to work towards much lower $ / m^2 targets in the near future. What is the approximate commercial cost of CVD-produced graphene sheets?
- AChamarthy 8y ago
  https://www.graphenea.com/collections/graphene-products/products/monolayer-graphene-on-cu-4-inches https://www.graphenea.com/collections/graphene-products/prod...
  - gjem97 8y ago
    Wow, cool. I imagine in volume it's within a factor of two or so of that?
mrfusion 8y ago
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?
- AChamarthy 8y ago
  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."

ChuckMcM 8y ago

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.

jws 8y ago
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 $3.50 bushel of corn. ␄ † wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Energy_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Energy_consumptio... ‡ About page 12 of this presentation: http://www.nwri-usa.org/documents/Elimelech_000.pdf http://www.nwri-usa.org/documents/Elimelech_000.pdf
- ChuckMcM 8y ago
  Primarily the concern was "drinking water" for people aka the urban water requirement (which includes drinking, washing, cooking, sanitation, and urban scale irrigation) I suppose it helps the seasteading picture as well but I haven't really thought much about that. Mostly if you can disconnect urban water planning from agricultural water planning it allows you to do things differently. Especially when it comes to water transport projects for coastal cities.
- Retric 8y ago
  At ~10-15 m^3 per bushel (2000 - 3000 gallons) the lowest cost intermittent electricity is under 2c/kwh. So that's closer to 20-30 cents per 3.50$ bushel of corn for energy at minimum. Though presumably there would be many other costs on top of pure energy especially if you are not operating 24/7. https://electrek.co/2017/11/16/cheapest-electricity-on-the-planet-mexican-solar-power/ https://electrek.co/2017/11/16/cheapest-electricity-on-the-p...

cslarson 8y ago

Space elevators?

fudged71 8y ago
Not viable, graphene isn't strong enough.
- DubiousPusher 8y ago
  Sources? Googling only returns a bunch of random threads with people insisting it's possible.
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    In theory any molecule that looks like a graphite layer should be enough. In practice there are plenty of concerns about the stability of the ones that aren't rolled into tubes (and some concern about those later ones too). The result is, you'll see plenty of calculations telling it's possible. But it is probably not.
    - MertsA 8y ago
      It definitely is with a tapered cable. The only question is if it could be done practically and if it would actually be worth the hassle. The self support length is for a cylinder of the material, with a cone there isn't a limit to the maximum self support length as the base just gets as wide as necessary to support the rest of it. But with graphene it's close enough that just a 10 to 1 difference in the cross-sectional area between the top of the cable and the bottom would be structurally sufficient. Since the area scales with the square of the radius a 10 to 1 difference is only sqrt(10) larger in diameter between the top and the bottom.
      - eloff 8y ago
        None of that answers whether the structural properties of graphene can be realized at the macroscopic level with such a massive cable. We don't know yet, because nobody has built something even close to that out of graphene.

chiefalchemist 8y ago

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.

NegativeLatency 8y ago
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.
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  It should burn with all the side products of most artificial carbon chains (aromatics and poisonous carbon oxides). Those aren't hard to deal with, but don't expect it to burn cleanly. It should also be hard to burn. It will probably require some water vapor to burn at all, and do it slowly.
  - hcknwscommenter 8y ago
    I'm not sure I understand how you arrived at your first point. It seems to me that at a suitable temperature and oxygen content atmosphere, it should burn about as clean as natural gas. Why would you expect otherwise? I also do not understand your second point. Surely, it is oxygen that is the missing ingredient in the burn rather than water vapor. What does water vapor provide to increase the rate of combustion?
    - marcosdumay 8y ago
      About the first point, you are expecting total combustion of a solid. That is hard to achieve. By your theory coal should also burn cleanly, and it evidently doesn't. With enough temperature and a high oxygen pressure, graphene will burn cleanly. But also will your furnace, and my bet is that both will do so at roughly the same temperature and pressure. About the second point, oxygen does not react well with graphite because it's entire surface does not let its electrons go very easily. Graphene has similar properties. Water does catalyze the burning of graphite, it may very well do that to graphene too.

marshray 8y ago

I stopped reading at: "composed of carbon atoms joined in a pattern that makes the material extremely tough and impervious to even the smallest atom, helium." Is helium really smaller than hydrogen?

Lozzer 8y ago
If you belive Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_radius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_radius then the atomic radius of Helium has never been measured, but it is predicted to be smaller than Hydrogen.
joshuas 8y ago
A google search says yes.
mattchamb 8y ago
Well, I'm not a physicist, but hydrogen gas is two atoms compared to 1 atom for helium gas.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- DrScump 8y ago
  hydrogen gas is two atoms ... which makes it a molecule.
MertsA 8y ago
Oddly enough yes Helium has a smaller atomic radius because the additional proton and electron complete that first electron shell and get pulled closer to the nucleus.
- pygy_ 8y ago
  Also, atomic Hydrogen is not very common around here (nor anywhere, I suppose)... H+ and H2, on the other hand...
- 8y ago

knicholes 8y ago

Sounds like Bill Gates may finally get his unbreakable condom.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
And if he does, it would be great. An ultra-thin, unbreakable condom would be a huge improvement both in quality-of-life and public health.

goombastic 8y ago

Next up is graphene pollution. All such new tech should also have tech that allows for natural decomposition and shouldn't probably be used until that is available as well.