Graphene the Ultimate Rust Preventer.

Another day, yet another use for graphene emerges from the labs, and this one might have huge industry implications. Graphene, whether in a single layer application or in a multi-layer formation, seems to have incredible corrosion resistance of use to industry. In single layer form, micro-electronic uses spring to mind. In multi-layered format, heavier industrial uses rise to the fore, including coatings for the industrial metals and all that this implies. Corrosion inhibition might even turn into one of graphenes largest uses.For one thing, the...

Graphite Foam makes Geothermal Energy...even, more efficient.

I was on the phone yesterday talking Ellis Martin into attending the Graphite Express Conference that GraphiteBlog is a sponsor of today in Vancouver. He did his usual song and dance about how much better his weather was in LA, but finally agreed once he was sure that I was aware of the favour he was extending. And for those that have missed the news, I have been quarantined to my home due to a viral thing that seems to be propagating everywhere. So what...

Pebble Bed Graphite.

China has one operating prototype, is now building two commercial units and plans to have 30 Pebble Bed nuclear reactors in operation by 2020.A reader was kind enough to send along the above snippet, knowing that I have an interest in Pebble Bed nuclear reactors. While generally not in favour of nuclear power, the risks and costs are just too great if something goes wrong, and as mere humans we know from experience that nothing we build is perfect, but if we must build nuclear...

Coming Next: Graphene Elevators.

With more than 100,000 sold worldwide, the system has a record of proven performance and reliability. At the heart of the GeN2® elevator system are Otis’ patented flat, polyurethane-coated steel belts. The belts are just 3 mm thick. Yet they are stronger than conventional steel cables and last up to three times longer. And they have enabled Otis to completely re-invent the elevator.Aramid fibers are a class of heat-resistant and strong synthetic fibers. They are used in aerospace and military applications, for ballistic rated body...

Using Tornados to Explore Graphene.

Professor Yuan said: The introduction of vortex beams into electron microscopy, with its screw-like revolving wave front -- much like tornados, will revolutionise the study of magnetic nanostructures, as well as creating new applications in terms of nanoparticle manipulation and trapping, and edge contrast detection.A big advance in the development and use of electron microscopes was announced this month that promises major advances in nanotechnology. The scientists themselves are thinking in terms of examining nano-scale magnetic materials, which in itself suggests even more powerful rare...

The Age of Graphene.

For graphene to be used as nanoelectromechanical resonators or nanosensors, it is essential to know its structural behaviour and limitations as a mechanical material.Practically every day comes news of another breakthrough in understanding graphene’s properties or in materials handling or scalability of means of production. Yesterday it was a big advance in graphene’s properties announced by the University of Bristol. Each advance in the knowledge base of graphene’s properties brings forwards the day when graphene products will become available to the public and widens the...

Graphene: The Miracle Material.

Graphene could set in motion a new “economic growth spiral”, making it the “compound of the 21st century”.While the big industrial use for graphite in the early part of the 21st century is likely to be in helping cool and keep safe nuclear reactors, developments in graphene are now coming so fast that it makes it highly likely that demand for graphene from graphite, will eventually come to surpass that off the nuclear industry. Below, MoneyWeek on the prospects for the “compound of the 21st...

Large Flake Graphene.

More than 10 years ago when it was being proclaimed that nanotechology could revolutionise computer technology, it was in part because they imagined that the development of molecular electronics was just around the corner. Molecular electronics involves replacing traditional electrical components with molecules, creating tiny electronic circuits for use in, for example, computers and data storage. This has proven to be more challenging than anticipated, in part because the components short-circuited when the molecules were contacted with electrodes and were therefore unable to create a...

Bullet-proof Graphene.

Ballistic vests use layers of very strong fiber to catch and deform a bullet, mushrooming it into a dish shape, and spreading its force over a larger portion of the vest fiber. The vest absorbs the energy from the deforming bullet, bringing it to a stop before it can completely penetrate the textile matrix. Some layers may be penetrated but as the bullet deforms, the energy is absorbed by a larger and larger fiber area.Move over Kevlar, Australian scientists have come up with a cheaper,...

Graphene Based Carbon Nanotubes.

Just about every week comes a new announcement regarding graphene nano-technology that has big implications in the world of the batteries that power our phones, laptops, and consumer electrics. Big implications too, in the world of electric vehicles, where the ultimate challenge is to get to pure battery electric vehicles without the need for a hybrid gasoline engine to overcome EVs range and recharging limitations. Yesterday it was the turn of scientists at Kansas State University.While many institutions worldwide are researching carbon nanotubes, it is...

Blood From a Stone?

Synthetic blood has become a reality from two sources: stem cells and altered cow plasma, but there is some hope that blood developed from graphene could also be not far off. Synthetic blood offers many benefits that are elusive in the area of donated blood. It could be made on a large scale. It could be tailored to be O-negative, the universal donor-type applicable to 98% of the population. Further, synthetic blood could bypass religious taboos of receiving transfusions from other people. A woman in...

Graphene From Ethanol.

“Graphene is a breakthrough advanced material that could change hundreds of the products we use in everyday life if this technology can be applied, as we think it can, across pretty much every sector,” he said.Today we are spoiled for choice with new developments announced in an environmentally friendly way of making synthesised reduced graphene oxide, a major advance in the production of nano-wire meshes by welding with light and the one I’ve chosen to go with today, which promises to bring the start of...

Down Under graphite wrap: three projects forge ahead

There’s a court hearing in Australia this Friday which may clear one roadblock to the emergence of a new graphite producer. No need to go into details, but some shareholders are affected by a procedural problem at Strategic Energy Resources (ASX:SER) anda scheme of arrangement that will see the Uley graphite project in South Australia move into a Canadian company, Mega Graphite. The important points are that, one, Mega Graphite plans to be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange by the end of March and,...

Making Graphene At Room Temperature.

Another big breakthrough in graphene handling was announced late in the week by scientists at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea. Though the scientists didn’t go on to spell it out, the new simpler method of growing graphene will result in lower costs and a speedier outcome. Our age of wonder material graphene is barely eight year old and is now on the cusp of leaving the labs for first to market products. Run out another 8 years to 2020,...

Lomiko Explores Graphite Deposit at their Quebec Property

The exciting new field of graphite and graphene has had a new development on Jan 31st 2012. Lomiko of Vancouver has just announced that they have hired Consul-Teck Mineral Exploration Consultants Inc. to explore the Quatre Mille graphite property in Quebec. Consul-Teck has three generations of experience in exploration in Quebec, and the property was previously drilled by Graphicor Resources Inc. According to Lomiko CEO A. Paul Gill, Pin-pointing previous drill targets and optimizing the exploration budget is a priority. Being able to produce at...

Graphene UK Update

One measure of how important super-substance graphene is seen as our future, can be seen in the United Kingdom, where the government in the midst of the biggest austerity program since the 1930s, which included scrapping both the Royal Navy’s carriers, came up with a new £50 million to fund graphene research and help commercialise the discoveries. Unsurprisingly the lion’s share of the money is going to a new research center at Manchester University to be run by the two Nobel Prize winning professors who...

Graphene Wires.

The idea with plasmonic devices is that they can convert optical signals into electronic signals, Idrobo said. So you could make really tiny wires, put light in one side of the wire, and that signal will be transformed into collective electron excitations known as plasmons. The plasmons will transmit the signal through the wire, come out the other side and be converted back to light.Another day and another advance in the potential use of graphene, the 21st century wonder material. This time it’s a proof...

Graphene The Next Transistor.

By a quirk of quantum mechanics, electrons moving through atom-thick sheets of carbon—known as graphene—dont suffer much at all from these sorts of collisions. Instead, they behave like massless particles, speeding along in straight lines for long distances just like photons do. And just like light, these electrons can be made to bend or bounce back when they move from one medium to another.What more can one say about graphene? Well it’s highly likely to become the 21st century transistor for one thing. And not...

Amazing Graphene.

Graphene, an amazing material, has the potential to design wallpaper-thin lighting panels, foldaway mobile phones and sophisticated aircraft. This discovery of its superpermeability suggests that it can be used in the distillation of alcohol.Another day, and another new potential use for graphene announced, this time by scientists at the University of Manchester, England. No not that graphene can be used in the distillation of alcohol, greatly though that will be appreciated in Manchester, graphene is superpermeable with water. “According to another researcher, Dr Irina Grigorieva,...

Compacted Graphite Iron

Together, the PurePOWER Technologies casting facilities in Indianapolis and Waukesha, provide capability for high volume CGI production for passenger vehicle applications and for commercial vehicle cylinder blocks and heads with engine displacements as large as 15 litres.Say goodbye to old fashioned cast iron cylinder blocks. It’s probably near the end of the line for aluminium alloy cylinder blocs too. To meet ever improving internal combustion engine emissions standards, the peak firing pressure in the cylinders keeps rising and now that the pressure has risen above...

Bilayer Graphene

An important finding of the research team is that the intrinsic energy gap in BLG grows with increasing magnetic field.The presence of an energy gap in silicon is critical to the semiconductor industry since, for digital applications, engineers need to turn the device on or conductive, and off or insulating.Another highly interesting development published this month came from the University of California, Riverside. By manipulating bilayer graphene, described below, the scientists at UCR were able to produce an energy gap making graphene an insulator. Over...

Graphene Chemical Sensors

Everything that can be invented has been invented.Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899. There was something of storm of graphene announcements at the start of 2012, which if it keeps up promises to make 2012 into a stellar year for this relatively new wonder material. The biggest news was that with the addition of hydrogen, graphene’s property changes from attractive to repulsive, in theory doubling graphene’s potential uses ahead. Almost as interesting was this development below in graphene’s use as chemical detector.When...

Graphene & Heat Conduction.

The performance of an electronic device degrades as it heats up, and if it continues the device fails, said Cho, also a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea.The faster heat is removed, the more efficient the device runs and the longer it lasts.While most research on graphene has focused on uses in electronics and in batteries, researchers at UT Dallas focused on graphene’s ability to transfer heat 20 times faster than silicon. Earlier this month their paper was published online in the...

Graphene & Hydrogen.

Graphene has engendered high expectations whereof its extreme properties depend on the fact that it consists of a single sheet of carbon atoms. However the attraction forces between the atoms cause the sheets to be drawn to each other. One solution is to add atomic hydrogen between the layers.Earlier this month scientists in Sweden published an interesting advance in graphene. If you place a touch of atomic hydrogen or helium together with graphene sheets, the sheets become repulsive instead of attractive. That opens up a...

The graphite industry - it's older than you might think

Graphite set to go critical in 2012, reads one stock picker website. Sure it will. And when you read most news items about graphite these days, it’s usually about lithium ion batteries and the pressure they’re going to put on miners to produce enough; that same website says a million tonnes a year could be added to demand by 2020, which is almost double present world output. Probably right. While Graphiteblog is very centred, very focused on the here and now, and on the huge...

The long, long saga of a graphite project

The project is now passing into the hands of an Ontario-based company, Mega Graphite Inc.,which specialises in selling high purity, large flake natural graphite. That company is taking an 80 per cent stake in a South Australian deposit that has a long history - 102 years long, in fact. But it is the past 20 years that illustrate what a struggle it has been to make the Uley graphite project, located just 18kmsouthwest of the city of Port Lincoln, a viable one. But the timing...

Getting to grips with graphene

As part of the graphite learning curve - for those of us who need it - well be featuring backgrounders on various aspects of the industry, getting our readers (and ourselves) fully up to speed on the exciting element. Heres an opening shot - a range finder, to use a military allusion - on graphene. Graphene, to hear many tell it, is the future. It was discovered in 2004, is extracted from graphite. It is many times stronger than steel, is so thin - just...

OK - you've watched REE and lithium go. Now watch graphite

Don’t take our word for it. Listen to Gerard Anderson, managing director of South Australia-based Archer Exploration, at the company’s recent annual meeting in Adelaide: “Archer likens the emerging importance of graphite to that of the recent history of rare earth elements and lithium. Few people realized how quickly REE and lithium would increase in importance as more and more advanced applications were discovered. Fewer understood the strategic importance of REE and lithium.” Graphiteblog.com understands. Thats why we now exist. We’ll get to the market...