A Flexible Sheet of Carbon, Graphene.
A product development group from Purdue has devised a method to scale up the production of graphene to a commercial volume. Graphene is a material made up of single sheets of carbon molecules. Its unique material qualities could revolutionize various industries from electronics to structural mechanics to biomedical.
This improved production method led to the creation BlueVine Graphene Industries under CEO Glenn Johnson and Mechanical Engineering Professor / CTO Timothy Fisher. The company is one of 20 launched by Purdue in 2014 based on their IP licensing program.
According to Johnson, "Our graphene electrodes are created using a roll-to-roll chemical vapor deposition process, and then they are combined with other materials utilizing a different roll-to-roll process … We can give the same foundational graphene electrodes entirely different properties, utilizing standard or custom materials that we are developing for our own commercial products. In essence what we've done is developed scalable graphene electrodes that are foundational pieces and can be easily customized to unique customer applications."
Fisher adds, "We're moving up to roll-to-roll, large-scale manufacturing capabilities. These roll-to-roll systems allow us to increase output by a thousand-fold over the original research-scale processes … These state-of-the-art systems allow us to leverage the game-changing properties of graphene and, in particular, our graphene petal technology, called Folium, at production scales that provide tremendous pricing advantages."
This Folium technology is being used within two applications: biosensors and super-capacitors. The biosensors will compete with products like glucose lancets. Traditional lancets use precious materials such as gold and other metals. Additionally, traditional lancets are painful to use as they work with a patient’s blood. However, as graphene sensors are sensitive enough to work off saliva, urine and tears they promise to be much less invasive.
"Patient non-compliance with doctor-recommended glucose testing frequency can be a problem,” Johnson notes. “By making lancets more affordable and potentially non-invasive, we are addressing a critical global need … More frequent tests could lead to better control of the disease, which could lead to an associated reduction in health risks."
The graphene super-capacitors, on the other hand, are aiming to give lithium-ion batteries a run for their money. Johnson said the company's graphene supercapacitors are reaching the energy density of lithium-ion batteries without a similar energy fade over time.
Johnson adds, "Our graphene-based super-capacitors charge in just a fraction of the time needed to charge lithium-ion batteries. There are many consumer, industrial and military applications … Wouldn't it be great if mobile phones could be fully recharged in only a matter of minutes, and if they kept working like new, year after year?"
BlueVine will continue to refine their production process and quality assurance to help ensure the proper production of graphene on a commercial scale.
Source Purdue.