Graphene developers edge towards commercial breakthrough
Financial Times By Michael Pooler - September 8 2014
Stronger than steel, tougher than diamond and yet lighter than paper, graphene has all the makings of a “miracle material”.
Scientists say the atom-thick crystalline layer of carbon, which also boasts high thermal and electrical conductivity, could be a game-changer in industries spanning aviation, electronics and medicine.
The only snag is finding uses for it. Since its discovery in a physics laboratory at the University of Manchester 10 years ago, industrial applications have proven frustratingly elusive.
That is changing – albeit slowly – as companies specialising in the substance edge forward with designs, prototypes and the first commercial deals.
Graphene Nanochem – an advanced materials producer based in Malaysia that is quoted on Aim, London’s junior market – struck a £1m agreement in July to supply 7,800 barrels of its long-awaited oil drilling fluid PlatDrill in what it called the world’s “first bulk deployment of graphene-enhanced chemicals”.
The group subsequently filed three patents in August for the production of graphene nano materials, joining the swelling ranks of developers, including blue-chip manufacturers Samsung and Foxconn, that have filed at least 12,800 graphene-related patents in the past five years, according to Cambridge IP, a UK-based technology strategy consultancy.
China, where three production facilities went into operation at the end of last year, alone accounted for more than 80 per cent of applications between 2012-13.
But experts say there remain a number of technical and commercial obstacles before an industry of any scale can take off.
“We can now make different forms of graphene in large quantities – that’s not the problem. The problem is matching the properties to a commercial product,” says Professor Andrea Ferrari, director of the Cambridge Graphene Centre.
IBM this year unveiled what it said was the first integrated electronic circuit made of wafer-scale graphene for wireless communications, a development that could lead to faster data transmission compared with today’s silicon chips.
But for now it is likely to be limited to lower-frequency devices of 20 gigahertz or less, according to Supratik Guha, IBM’s director of physical sciences.
“Will graphene replace silicon [in electronics]? I don’t think so. Graphene transistors have some quirks in their performance,” says Mr Guha, pointing out that graphene lacks a “band gap” possessed by other semiconductors that allow them to be switched on and off.
With manufacturing sheets of the material costly, another challenge lies in proving its value as a replacement for current industry-standard materials, says Quentin Tannock, executive chairman of Cambridge IP.
“If you have a material already in mass market use and everybody’s tools and equipment are used to it, there has to be a huge improvement in performance [from the new material] as there are significant risks in switching,” he says.
Analysts say that a “killer application” – a unique and indispensable product that sets an industry benchmark – is required for a breakthrough. Without this developers must show that graphene “has a small and incremental benefit over incumbent [materials] and gradually gain market share that way”, says Khasha Ghaffarzadeh of Cambridge-based consultants IDTechEX.
Some are attempting just that. Aim-quoted Haydale, which rather than manufacturing graphene injects nanoparticles of the substance into host materials such as inks and composite materials, this summer signed marketing deals that laid the ground for sales to R&D customers in Asia and the US.
A similar approach was seen last month when a joint team from the University of Surrey and Trinity College Dublin presented common elastic bands treated with graphene. Researchers say they can function as inexpensive body motion sensors for medical uses such as measuring a patient’s breathing or heart rate.
Despite such developments, analysts say widescale commercialisation could take another 10-20 years. IDTechEX forecasts that by 2024 the graphene market will be worth just $390m, up from about $20m today.
Even so, public authorities recognise the economic importance of gaining a first-mover advantage in graphene. The UK government has invested £61m in a National Graphene Institute in Manchester, due to open next year, while the EU is spending €1bn over 10 years on a programme to turn scientific research into marketable products.
Online source:
ft.com |
