News — graphene oxide application

Last week, the William Blythe team showcased their work with graphene oxide at the most recent CIR Strategy conference in Cambridge. The event featured esteemed delegates with expertise in a variety of sectors including the field of advanced materials: a promising and ever-expanding area of scientific development. This conference acted as a platform to discuss breakthrough technologies in the academic and commercial world of nanomaterials, and here is just a snippet of what we learnt.

The ISO standardisation for a variety of 2D materials now states that graphene materials must have fewer than 10 layers, which can be measured using the AFM or Raman/SEM coupled analysis techniques used for the GOgraphene range. It was apparent that the production of ‘high quality’ graphene materials is required for commercialisation, indicating high purity, consistency from batch to batch, affordability and most importantly, performance.

The scope for the applications of graphene materials ranges from polymer composites to biomedical applications. Energy storage was a recurring theme throughout the sessions, with the inclusion of reduced graphene oxide into battery and fuel cell technologies allowing for an advanced device with higher performances. Graphene materials even have the promising uses in aerospace applications. With its exceptional strength at very low weight loadings, the incorporation of graphene materials can drastically reduce vehicle mass. This leads to savings on fuel, in conjunction with electronic and thermal conductivity properties obtained with a reduced graphene oxide/graphene material.

The 15^th HVM and 4^th GNM conference was a superbly organised and informative event, and the William Blythe team look forward to attending more distinguished events in the future. If you are currently working in any sectors noted in this article and would like to know how graphene oxide can improve your technology, please do get in touch.

On the 2nd and 3rd November, the city of Cambridge will stage a unique crossover of the 4th Graphene and New Materials and the 15th High Value Manufacturing (HVM) conferences, hosted by the Cambridge Investment Research (CIR) team. This prestigious event will showcase the most recent advances for industrial automation in HVM and the use of graphene materials in applications such as aerospace & defence, electronics, sensors, energy storage, printing and biomedicine, delivered by senior executives and experts in each respective field.

William Blythe will be among those presenting in the ‘Enabling Technology and Industry’ Session on the first day of the conference. This presentation will briefly explore William Blythe as a company, their development and scale up work on graphene oxide which has been achieved in recent years, before concluding with the company’s ability to tune graphene oxide to suit a variety of applications.

The inclusion of graphene materials throughout this conference evidences the materials' flexibility in a variety of sectors, and the drive to commercialise these 2D materials. William Blythe aims to work with its customers in optimising graphene oxide to each specific application and therefore hopes to connect with researchers interested in graphene oxide at this event. If you would like to learn more about our aims, or to arrange a meeting with a member of the William Blythe team at this event, please get in touch.

How soon could it be before graphene materials are present in everyday clothing? The rapid development of nanoscience has accelerated the production of miniaturised electronic devices. These advancements have opened new markets in the textile industry, with academics now researching wearable electronics via the weaving of conductive nanomaterials into the clothing fibres. These fibres have been demonstrated as strain and pressure sensors for health applications, wearable energy converters that can harvest solar energy, and as energy storage devices. This last application is particularly exciting as this will allow for displays on clothing, paper like mobile phones and clothing that can be used as a power source for when you’re on the move.

Materials such as metallic nanoparticles and polypyrrole have been deposited on yarn to produce supercapacitors with energy storage properties, however research has demonstrated issues with low strength and capacitance in the fibres. An ASC Nano published paper has utilised graphene oxide as an effective component in these fibres to increase the electronic performance. This research produced a fibre with high specific capacities, good flexibility and long cycle life, with up to 92% retention of capacity after 4950 cycles.

In the study, the yarn is coated in a graphene oxide dispersion and is easily reduced in-situ during the fibre making process. The reduced graphene oxide was found to increase strength, improve charge transfer to the metallic nanoparticles and also contributes to capacitance enhancement. This research exhibits another example of how graphene oxide can be used in composites to increase a products performance in a wide range of applications. If you have any questions regarding the use of graphene oxide in your research, please get in touch.

ACS Nano, 2015, 9, 4766–4775

According to independent research, the global market for water filtration and purification membranes is estimated to be worth more than US$25bn. Given the potential for graphene oxide in water filtration, it is therefore unsurprising that significant academic research has taken place into graphene oxide membranes.

A key challenge when moving from academic research to commercial products involves ensuring the technology is scalable. G2O, a UK based graphene innovation company, has developed and patented graphene oxide membrane filtration technology and will be leading a £1m project to scale the technology over the next two years. The project includes a number of UK companies working on different aspects of the scale up. William Blythe is proud to announce that they will be working on this project as the graphene oxide material developer and supplier, optimising their graphene oxide for G2O’s membrane filters. Described as “an essential new technology capable of providing contaminant-free water in a cost-effective way for people in the developing world”, William Blythe are looking forward to working collaboratively on this project over the next two years.

If you have any questions about William Blythe's graphene oxide research, please get in touch.

Polyoxometalates, or POMs, is the name given to polynuclear materials which contain transition metals and oxygen. They have been researched for a diverse range of applications, including photochemistry and energy storage. The most popular research area to date for POMs has been catalysis, where their redox properties and strong Brønsted acidity are utilised. The biggest problems with POMs include difficulty of separation and the poor availability of active sites. Support materials for POMs have therefore been of great interest within the scientific community as they may offer a simultaneous solution to both problems.

Many support materials have been researched for this purpose, with silica and polymers common choices. Graphene oxide is also of interest in this research area due to its high surface area and its ease of dispersion in a number of solvents. Accordingly, a recent paper published in Materials Chemistry and Physics focused on supporting polyoxometalates on graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide for catalyst applications. The researchers discovered that there were three important parameters to control the adsorption; the presence of oxygen functional groups, the pH and the solvent were all key to achieving the highest possible adsorption capacity.

The research compared the ability of graphene oxide and two reduced graphene oxides, which had different oxygen contents. The highest adsorption capacity achieved by the research was 427 mg/g, which was achieved by graphene oxide. This indicates that a higher oxygen content is preferable when aiming for high adsorption capacities.
This paper is another example of the breadth of research which graphene oxide is currently being used in. If you have any questions about how your research could benefit from graphene oxide, please get in touch.

Mater. Chem. Phys., 2017, 299, 424