Graphene — Six Sectors Have Become Research Focuses

By Zhou Hexiang

The 12th Five-Year Plan for China’s New Materials Industry (2011-2015), issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China (MIIT) in 2012 clearly supported the development of graphene new materials. In September 2014, the “863 Plan” of MIIT on Nanoscale Materials put forward that by 2018, the key industrial systems like the preparation, applications and development and terminal applications of graphene materials would be basically established, product standards and technical specifications would be basically improved, the stable production of graphene would be realized, and industrialization would be initially conducted in some industrial products and civil products. By 2020, China would form a perfect graphene industrial system, realize the standardization, serialization and low cost of graphene materials, and realize large-scale application of graphene materials in many sectors.
At present, China has ten listed graphene companies: Jinlu Group Co., Ltd., Fangda Carbon New Material Co., Ltd., China Baoan Group Co., Ltd., Leaguer Stock Co., Ltd., Ingenious Ene-Carbon New Materials Co., Ltd., Xinjiang Zhongtai Chemical Co., Ltd., Deluxe Family Co., Ltd., Letong Chemical Co., Ltd., Jiangsu Yueda Investment Co., Ltd. and Jiangsu Kangde Xin Composite Material Co., Ltd. A number of companies have constructed graphene quantitative production units and matching facilities, among which Ningbo Morsh Technology Co., Ltd. has completed a 300 t/a graphene material production line, and Beijing Carbon Century Technology Co., Ltd. has constructed a ton-grade graphene (single-atomic-layer carbon) demonstration production line.

Six sectors have become research focuses

The research and industrialization of graphene have developed constantly. From the distribution of graphene patent fields, one can see that its focuses of application technology research include graphene for the preparation of battery electrode materials, semiconductor device materials, transparent display touch screen materials, thin film transistors and composite materials. In more detail, the research and development of graphene technology focuses mainly on the following six sectors.
1. Composite materials
Graphene-polymer composite materials have been one of the important application sectors for graphene. As a nanoscale reinforcing component, a small amount of graphene added to polymers can greatly improve the electrical, mechanical, thermal and gas barrier properties of polymers.
2. Electrode materials
Graphene can be used to build three-dimensional conductive network in battery electrodes (including positive electrode and negative electrode). Using 0.5%-2% of the graphene conductive additives to replace 10%-15% of conductive carbon black can further reduce the internal resistance of a lithium battery in order to improve the rate performance and cycle life of the battery. Ningbo Institute of Industrial Technology (CNITECH) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has developed graphene-encapsulated lithium iron phosphate nanoscale particle technology, and the construction of a pilot production line was completed by Ningbo Energy Material Technology Co., Ltd.
3. Conductive ink
Graphene can be used as the main filler of new types of conductive ink or mixed with nanoscale silver powder to produce novel conductive pastes and inks, and through changing the filling ratio of graphene, the resistivity and adhesion performance of products are adjusted.
4. Thermal conductive materials
Graphene composite thermal conductive materials include graphene cooling fins/ membranes with high thermal conductivity and graphene modified composite materials such as thermal conductive fibers and thermal conductive plastics. In the electronic and engineering sectors, market demand for the technology is urgent, and the technology might well enter the market quickly.
5. Display devices
Due to its special molecular structure, graphene has very high conductivity and is almost completely transparent, so it is very suitable for the production of display devices. It has high toughness, can stretch 20% without fracture, so it can be used to produce foldable and retractable display devices. Graphene touch screens have advantages of being harmless to the environment and requiring fewer resources for manufacture, and the production cost is expected to be significantly lower than that of the familiar indium tin oxide touch screens.
6. Biomedicine
Graphene and its derivatives have broad applications in nanoscale drug delivery systems, biological detection, biological imaging, cancer treatment, etc. Graphene based biological devices and biological sensors can be used for bacterial analysis and the detection of DNA and proteins. Graphene nanopore equipment developed by University of Pennsylvania can quickly complete DNA sequencing. In biological imaging, graphene quantum dots are more stable, less subject to photobleaching and slower to decay than phosphors.
Research of graphene applications in the biomedical sector is in the initial stage; however, the sector is one of the application sectors with the most extensive industrialization prospects for graphene.

At present, China has no more than 30 graphene producers. Domestic research on graphene is still in the stage of lab tests and pilot tests. Also, most enterprises are in stages of small batch production and cannot yet accomplish stable large-scale production. The development of the graphene sector involves many subjects and sectors, from R&D to the final application. China’s graphene sector is not yet very systematic, and the support from databases, detection, standards and application verification systems is inadequate, seriously restricting the development of the sector.