Tag Archives: graphite

Solar-powered graphene skin for more feeling in your prosthetics

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A March 23, 2017 news item on Nanowerk highlights research that could put feeling into a prosthetic limb,

A new way of harnessing the sun’s rays to power ‘synthetic skin’ could help to create advanced prosthetic limbs capable of returning the sense of touch to amputees.

Engineers from the University of Glasgow, who have previously developed an ‘electronic skin’ covering for prosthetic hands made from graphene, have found a way to use some of graphene’s remarkable physical properties to use energy from the sun to power the skin.

Graphene is a highly flexible form of graphite which, despite being just a single atom thick, is stronger than steel, electrically conductive, and transparent. It is graphene’s optical transparency, which allows around 98% of the light which strikes its surface to pass directly through it, which makes it ideal for gathering energy from the sun to generate power.

A March 23, 2017 University of Glasgow press release, which originated the news item, details more about the research,

Ravinder Dahiya

Dr Ravinder Dahiya

A new research paper, published today in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, describes how Dr Dahiya and colleagues from his Bendable Electronics and Sensing Technologies (BEST) group have integrated power-generating photovoltaic cells into their electronic skin for the first time.

Dr Dahiya, from the University of Glasgow’s School of Engineering, said: “Human skin is an incredibly complex system capable of detecting pressure, temperature and texture through an array of neural sensors which carry signals from the skin to the brain.

“My colleagues and I have already made significant steps in creating prosthetic prototypes which integrate synthetic skin and are capable of making very sensitive pressure measurements. Those measurements mean the prosthetic hand is capable of performing challenging tasks like properly gripping soft materials, which other prosthetics can struggle with. We are also using innovative 3D printing strategies to build more affordable sensitive prosthetic limbs, including the formation of a very active student club called ‘Helping Hands’.

“Skin capable of touch sensitivity also opens the possibility of creating robots capable of making better decisions about human safety. A robot working on a construction line, for example, is much less likely to accidentally injure a human if it can feel that a person has unexpectedly entered their area of movement and stop before an injury can occur.”

The new skin requires just 20 nanowatts of power per square centimetre, which is easily met even by the poorest-quality photovoltaic cells currently available on the market. And although currently energy generated by the skin’s photovoltaic cells cannot be stored, the team are already looking into ways to divert unused energy into batteries, allowing the energy to be used as and when it is required.

Dr Dahiya added: “The other next step for us is to further develop the power-generation technology which underpins this research and use it to power the motors which drive the prosthetic hand itself. This could allow the creation of an entirely energy-autonomous prosthetic limb.

“We’ve already made some encouraging progress in this direction and we’re looking forward to presenting those results soon. We are also exploring the possibility of building on these exciting results to develop wearable systems for affordable healthcare. In this direction, recently we also got small funds from Scottish Funding Council.”

For more information about this advance and others in the field of prosthetics you may want to check out Megan Scudellari’s March 30, 2017 article for the IEEE’s (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Spectrum (Note: Links have been removed),

Cochlear implants can restore hearing to individuals with some types of hearing loss. Retinal implants are now on the market to restore sight to the blind. But there are no commercially available prosthetics that restore a sense of touch to those who have lost a limb.

Several products are in development, including this haptic system at Case Western Reserve University, which would enable upper-limb prosthetic users to, say, pluck a grape off a stem or pull a potato chip out of a bag. It sounds simple, but such tasks are virtually impossible without a sense of touch and pressure.

Now, a team at the University of Glasgow that previously developed a flexible ‘electronic skin’ capable of making sensitive pressure measurements, has figured out how to power their skin with sunlight. …

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Energy-Autonomous, Flexible, and Transparent Tactile Skin by Carlos García Núñez, William Taube Navaraj, Emre O. Polat and Ravinder Dahiya. Advanced Functional Materials DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201606287 Version of Record online: 22 MAR 2017

© 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

This paper is behind a paywall.

R.I.P. Mildred Dresselhaus, Queen of Carbon

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I’ve been hearing about Mildred Dresselhaus, professor emerita (retired professor) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), just about as long as I’ve been researching and writing about nanotechnology (about 10 years total* including the work for my master’s project with the almost eight years on this blog).

She died on Monday, Feb. 20, 2017 at the age of 86 having broken through barriers for those of her gender, barriers for her subject area, and barriers for her age.

Mark Anderson in his Feb. 22, 2017 obituary for the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Spectrum website provides a brief overview of her extraordinary life and accomplishments,

Called the “Queen of Carbon Science,” Dresselhaus pioneered the study of carbon nanostructures at a time when studying physical and material properties of commonplace atoms like carbon was out of favor. Her visionary perspectives on the sixth atom in the periodic table—including exploring individual layers of carbon atoms (precursors to graphene), developing carbon fibers stronger than steel, and revealing new carbon structures that were ultimately developed into buckyballs and nanotubes—invigorated the field.

“Millie Dresselhaus began life as the child of poor Polish immigrants in the Bronx; by the end, she was Institute Professor Emerita, the highest distinction awarded by the MIT faculty. A physicist, materials scientist, and electrical engineer, she was known as the ‘Queen of Carbon’ because her work paved the way for much of today’s carbon-based nanotechnology,” MIT president Rafael Reif said in a prepared statement.

Friends and colleagues describe Dresselhaus as a gifted instructor as well as a tireless and inspired researcher. And her boundless generosity toward colleagues, students, and girls and women pursuing careers in science is legendary.

…

In 1963, Dresselhaus began her own career studying carbon by publishing a paper on graphite in the IBM Journal for Research and Development, a foundational work in the history of nanotechnology. To this day, her studies of the electronic structure of this material serve as a reference point for explorations of the electronic structure of fullerenes and carbon nanotubes. Coauthor, with her husband Gene Dresselhaus, of a leading book on carbon fibers, she began studying the laser vaporation of carbon and the “carbon clusters” that resulted. Researchers who followed her lead discovered a 60-carbon structure that was soon identified as the icosahedral “soccer ball” molecular configuration known as buckminsterfullerene, or buckyball. In 1991, Dresselhaus further suggested that fullerene could be elongated as a tube, and she outlined these imagined objects’ symmetries. Not long after, researchers announced the discovery of carbon nanotubes.

When she began her nearly half-century career at MIT, as a visiting professor, women consisted of just 4 percent of the undergraduate student population.  So Dresselhaus began working toward the improvement of living conditions for women students at the university. Through her leadership, MIT adopted an equal and joint admission process for women and men. (Previously, MIT had propounded the self-fulfilling prophecy of harboring more stringent requirements for women based on less dormitory space and perceived poorer performance.) And so promoting women in STEM—before it was ever called STEM—became one of her passions. Serving as president of the American Physical Society, she spearheaded and launched initiatives like the Committee on the Status of Women in Physics and the society’s more informal committees of visiting women physicists on campuses around the United States, which have increased the female faculty and student populations on the campuses they visit.

If you have the time, please read Anderson’s piece in its entirety.

One fact that has impressed me greatly is that Dresselhaus kept working into her eighties. I featured a paper she published in an April 27, 2012 posting at the age of 82 and she was described in the MIT write up at the time as a professor, not a professor emerita. I later featured Dresselhaus in a May 31, 2012 posting when she was awarded the Kavli Prize for Nanoscience.

It seems she worked almost to the end. Recently, GE (General Electric) posted a video “What If Scientists Were Celebrities?” starring Mildred Dresselhaus,

H/t Mark Anderson’s obituary Feb. 22, 2017 piece. The video was posted on Feb. 8, 2017.

Goodbye to the Queen of Carbon!

*The word ‘total’ added on March 14, 2022.

Are there any leaders in the ‘graphene race’?

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Tom Eldridge, a director and co-founder of Fullerex, has written a Jan. 5, 2017 essay titled: Is China still leading the graphene race? for Nanotechnology Now. Before getting to the essay, here’s a bit more about Fullerex and Tom Eldridge’s qualifications. From Fullerex’s LinkedIn description,

Fullerex is a leading independent broker of nanomaterials and nano-intermediates. Our mission is to support the advancement of nanotechnology in creating radical, transformative and sustainable improvement to society. We are dedicated to achieving these aims by accelerating the commercialisation and usage of nanomaterials across industry and beyond. Fullerex is active in market development and physical trading of advanced materials. We generate demand for nanomaterials across synergistic markets by stimulating innovation with end-users and ensuring robust supply chains are in place to address the growing commercial trade interest. Our end-user markets include Polymers and Polymer Composites, Coatings, Tyre and Rubber, Cementitious Composites, 3D Printing and Printed Electronics, the Energy sector, Lubricating Oils and Functional Fluids. The materials we cover: Nanomaterials: Includes fullerenes, carbon nanotubes and graphene, metal and metal oxide nanoparticles, and organic-inorganic hybrids. Supplied as raw nanopowders or ready-to-use dispersions and concentrates. Nano-intermediates: Producer goods and semi-finished products such as nano-enabled coatings, polymer masterbatches, conductive inks, thermal interface materials and catalysts.

As for Tom Eldridge, here’s more about him, his brother, and the company from the Fullerex About page,

Fullerex was founded by Joe and Tom Eldridge, brothers with a keen interest in nanotechnology and the associated emerging market for nanomaterials.

Joe has a strong background in trading with nearly 10 years’ experience as a stockbroker, managing client accounts for European Equities and FX. At University he read Mathematics at Imperial College London gaining a BSc degree and has closely followed the markets for disruptive technologies and advanced materials for a number of years.

Tom worked in the City of London for 7 years in commercial roles throughout his professional career, with an expertise in market data, financial and regulatory news. In his academic background, he earned a BSc degree in Physics and Philosophy at Kings College London and is a member of the Institute of Physics.

As a result, Fullerex has the strong management composition that allows the company to support the growth of the nascent and highly promising nanomaterials industry. Fullerex is a flexible company with drive, enthusiasm and experience, committed to aiding the development of this market.

Getting back to the matter at hand, that’s a rather provocative title for Tom Eldridge’s essay,. given that he’s a Brit and (I believe) the Brits viewed themselves as leaders in the ‘graphene race’ but he offers a more nuanced analysis than might be expected from the title. First, the patent landscape (from Eldridge’s Jan. 5, 2017 essay),

As competition to exploit the “wonder material” has intensified around the world, detailed reports have so far been published which set out an in-depth depiction of the global patent landscape for graphene, notably from CambridgeIP and the UK Intellectual Property Office, in 2013 and 2015 respectively. Ostensibly the number of patents and patent applications both indicated that China was leading the innovation in graphene technology. However, on closer inspection it became less clear as to how closely the patent figures themselves reflect actual progress and whether this will translate into real economic impact. Some of the main reasons to be doubtful included:

– 98% of the Chinese patent applications only cover China, so therefore have no worldwide monopoly.
– A large number of the Chinese patents are filed in December, possibly due to demand to meet patent quotas. The implication being that the patent filings follow a politically driven agenda, rather than a purely innovation or commercially driven agenda.
– In general, inventors could be more likely to file for patent protection in some countries rather than others e.g. for tax purposes. Which therefore does not give a truly accurate picture of where all the actual research activity is based.
– Measuring the proportion of graphene related patents to overall patents is more indicative of graphene specialisation, which shows that Singapore has the largest proportion of graphene patents, followed by China, then South Korea.

(Intellectual Property Office, 2015), (Ellis, 2015), (CambridgeIP, 2013)

Then, there’s the question of production,

Following the recent launch of the latest edition of the Bulk Graphene Pricing Report, which is available exclusively through The Graphene Council, Fullerex has updated its comprehensive list of graphene producers worldwide, and below is a summary of the number of graphene producers by country in 2017.

Summary Table Showing the Number of Graphene Producers by Country and Region

The total number of graphene producers identified is 142, across 27 countries. This research expands upon previous surveys of the graphene industry, such as the big data analysis performed by Nesta in 2015 (Shapira, 2015). The study by Nesta [formerly  NESTA, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) is an independent charity that works to increase the innovation capacity of the UK; see Wikipedia here for more about NESTA] revealed 65 producers throughout 16 countries but was unable to glean accurate data on producers in Asia, particularly China.

As we can now see however from the data collected by Fullerex, China has the largest number of graphene producers, followed by the USA, and then the UK.

In addition to having more companies active in the production and sale of graphene than any other country, China also holds about 2/3rds of the global production capacity, according to Fullerex.

Eldridge goes on to note that the ‘graphene industry’ won’t truly grow and develop until there are substantive applications for the material. He also suggests taking another look at the production figures,

As with the patent landscape, rather than looking at the absolute figures, we can review the numbers in relative terms. For instance, if we normalise to account for the differences in the size of each country, by looking at the number of producers as a proportion of GDP, we see the following: Spain (7.18), UK (4.48), India (3.73), China (3.57), Canada (3.28) [emphasis mine], USA (1.79) (United Nations, 2013).

Unsurprisingly, each leading country has a national strategy for economic development which involves graphene prominently.

For instance, The Spanish Council for Scientific Research has lent 9 of its institutes along with 10 universities and other public R&D labs involved in coordinating graphene projects with industry.

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [NSERC] has placed graphene as one of five research topics in its target area of “Advanced Manufacturing” for Strategic Partnership Grants.

The UK government highlights advanced materials as one of its Eight Great Technologies, within which graphene is a major part of, having received investment for the NGI and GEIC buildings, along with EPSRC and Innovate UK projects. I wrote previously about the UK punching above its weight in terms of research, ( http://fullerex.com/index.php/articles/130-the-uk-needs-an-industrial-revolution-can-graphene-deliver/ ) but that R&D spending relative to GDP was too low compared to other developed nations. It is good to see that investment into graphene production in the UK is bucking that trend, and we should anticipate this will provide a positive economic outcome.

Yes, I’m  particularly interested in the fact Canada becomes more important as a producer when the numbers are relative but it is interesting to compare the chart with Eldridge’s text and to note how importance shifts depending on what numbers are being considered.

I recommend reading Eldridge’s piece in its entirety.

A few notes about graphene in Canada

By the way, the information in Eldridge’s essay about NSERC’s placement of graphene as a target area for grants is news to me. (As I have often noted here, I get more information about the Canadian nano scene from international sources than I do from our national sources.)

Happily I do get some home news such as a Jan. 5, 2017 email update from Lomiko Metals, a Canadian junior exploration company focused on graphite and lithium. The email provides the latest information from the company (as I’m not an expert in business or mining this is not an endorsement),

On December 13, 2016 we were excited to announce the completion of our drill program at the La Loutre flake graphite property. We received very positive results from our 1550 meter drilling program in 2015 in the area we are drilling now. In that release I stated, “”The intercepts of multiple zones of mineralization in the Refractory Zone where we have reported high grade intercepts previously is a very promising sign. The samples have been rushed to the ALS Laboratory for full assay testing,” We hope to have the results of those assays shortly.

December 16, 2016 Lomiko announced a 10:1 roll back of our shares. We believe that this roll back is important as we work towards securing long term equity financing for the company. Lomiko began trading on the basis of the roll back on December 19.

We believe that Graphite has a bright future because of the many new products that will rely on the material. I have attached a link to a video on Lomiko, Graphite and Graphene.  

https://youtu.be/Y–Y_Ub6oC4

January 3, 2017 Lomiko announced the extension and modification of its option agreements with Canadian Strategic Metals Inc. for the La Loutre and Lac des Iles properties. The effect of this extension is to give Lomiko additional time to complete the required work under the agreements.

Going forward Lomiko is in a much stronger position as the result of our share roll back. Potential equity funders who are very interested in our forthcoming assay results from La Loutre and the overall prospects of the company, have been reassured by our share consolidation.

Looking forward to 2017, we anticipate the assays of the La Loutre drilling to be delivered in the next 90 days, sooner we hope. We also anticipate additional equity funding will become available for the further exploration and delineation of the La Loutre and Lac des Iles properties and deposits.

More generally, we are confident that the market for large flake graphite will become firmer in 2017. Lomiko’s strategy of identifying near surface, ready to mine, graphite nodes puts us in the position to take advantage of improvements in the graphite price without having to commit large sums to massive mine development. As we identify and analyze the graphite nodes we are finding we increase the potential resources of the company. 2017 should see significantly improved resource estimates for Lomiko’s properties.

As I wasn’t familiar with the term ‘roll back of shares’, I looked it up and found this in an April 18, 2012 posting by Dudley Pierce Baker on kitco.com,

As a general rule, we hate to see an announcement of a share rollback, however, there exceptions which we cover below. Investors should always be aware that if a company has, say over 150 million shares outstanding, in our opinion, it is a potential candidate for a rollback and the announcement should not come as a surprise.

Weak markets, a low share price, a large number of shares outstanding, little or no cash and you have a company which is an idea candidate for a rollback.

The basic concept of a rollback or consolidation in a company’s shares is rather simple.

…

We are witnessing a few cases of rollbacks not with the purpose of raising more money but rather to facilitate the listing of the company’s shares on the NYSE [New York Stock Exchange] Amex.

…

I have no idea what situation Lomiko finds itself in but it should be noted that graphere research has been active since 2004 when the first graphene sheets were extracted from graphite. This is a relatively new field of endeavour and Lomiko (along with other companies) is in the position of pioneering the effort here in Canada. That said, there are many competitors to graphene and major international race to commercialize nanotechnology-enabled products.

Are there any leaders in the ‘graphene race?

Getting back to the question in the headline, I don’t think there are any leaders at the moment. No one seems to have what they used to call “a killer app,” that one application/product that everyone wants and which drive demand for graphene.

Making the impossible possible: on demand and by design, atomic scale pipes

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This research on pipes from the University of Manchester will probably never finds its way into plumbing practices but, apparently, is of great interest in fundamental research. From a Sept. 7, 2016 news item on phys.org,

Materials containing tiny capillaries and cavities are widely used in filtration, separation and many other technologies, without which our modern lifestyle would be impossible. Those materials are usually found by luck or accident rather than design. It has been impossible to create artificial capillaries with atomic-scale precision.

Now a Manchester group led by postdoctoral researcher Radha Boya and Nobel laureate Andre Geim show how to make the impossible possible, as reported in Nature.

A Sept. 7, 2016 University of Manchester press release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item,  provides a description of the technology,

The new technology is elegant, adaptable and strikingly simple. In fact, it is a kind of antipode of the famous material graphene. When making graphene, people often take a piece of graphite and use Scotch tape to extract a single atomic plane of carbon atoms, graphene. The remaining graphite is discarded.

In this new research, Manchester scientists similarly extracted a strip of graphene from graphite, but discarded the graphene and focused on what was left: an ultra-thin cavity within the graphite crystal.

Such atomic scale cavities can be made from various materials to achieve not only a desired size but also to choose properties of capillary walls. They can be atomically smooth or rough, hydrophilic or hydrophobic, insulating or conductive, electrically charged or neutral; the list goes on.

The voids can be made as cavities (to confine various substances) or open-ended tunnels (to transport different gases and liquids), which is of huge interest for fundamental research and many applications. It is limited only by imagination what such narrow tunnels with designer properties can potentially do for us.

Properties of materials at this truly atomic scale are expected to be quite different from those we are familiar with in our macroscopic world. To demonstrate that this is the case of their atomic-scale voids, the Manchester group tested how water runs through those ultra-narrow pipes.

To everyone’s surprise, they found water to flow with little friction and at high speed, as if the channels were many thousands times wider than they actually are.

Radha Boya commented ‘This is an entirely new type of nanoscale systems. Such capillaries were never imagined, even in theory. No one thought that this degree of accuracy in design could be possible. New filtration, desalination, gas separation technologies are kind of obvious directions but there are so many others to explore’.

Sir Andre added ‘Making something useful out of an empty space is certainly cute. Finding that this space offers so much of new science is flabbergasting. Even with hindsight, I did not expect the idea to work so well. There are myriads of possibilities for research and development, which now need to be looked at. We are stunned by the choice.’

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Molecular transport through capillaries made with atomic-scale precision by B. Radha, A. Esfandiar, F. C. Wang, A. P. Rooney, K. Gopinadhan, A. Keerthi, A. Mishchenko, A. Janardanan, P. Blake, L. Fumagalli, M. Lozada-Hidalgo, S. Garaj, S. J. Haigh, I. V. Grigorieva, H. A. Wu, & A. K. Geim. Nature (2016)  doi:10.1038/nature19363 Published online 07 September 2016

This paper is behind a paywall.

Gold-144 is a polymorph

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Au-144 (also known as Gold-144) is an iconic gold nanocluster according to a June 14, 2016 news item announcing its polymorphic nature on ScienceDaily,

Chemically the same, graphite and diamonds are as physically distinct as two minerals can be, one opaque and soft, the other translucent and hard. What makes them unique is their differing arrangement of carbon atoms.

Polymorphs, or materials with the same composition but different structures, are common in bulk materials, and now a new study in Nature Communications confirms they exist in nanomaterials, too. Researchers describe two unique structures for the iconic gold nanocluster Au144(SR)60, better known as Gold-144, including a version never seen before. Their discovery gives engineers a new material to explore, along with the possibility of finding other polymorphic nanoparticles.

A June 14, 2016 Columbia University news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, provides more insight into the work,

“This took four years to unravel,” said Simon Billinge, a physics professor at Columbia Engineering and a member of the Data Science Institute. “We weren’t expecting the clusters to take on more than one atomic arrangement. But this discovery gives us more handles to turn when trying to design clusters with new and useful properties.”

Gold has been used in coins and jewelry for thousands of years for its durability, but shrink it to a size 10,000 times smaller than a human hair [at one time one billionth of a meter or a nanometer was said to be 1/50,000, 1/60,000 or 1/100,000 of the diameter of a human hair], and it becomes wildly unstable and unpredictable. At the nanoscale, gold likes to split apart other particles and molecules, making it a useful material for purifying water, imaging and killing tumors, and making solar panels more efficient, among other applications.

Though a variety of nanogold particles and molecules have been made in the lab, very few have had their secret atomic arrangement revealed. But recently, new technologies are bringing these miniscule structures into focus.

Under one approach, high-energy x-ray beams are fired at a sample of nanoparticles. Advanced data analytics are used to interpret the x-ray scattering data and infer the sample’s structure, which is key to understanding how strong, reactive or durable the particles might be.

Billinge and his lab have pioneered a method, the atomic Pair Distribution Function (PDF) analysis, for interpreting this scattering data. To test the PDF method, Billinge asked chemists at the Colorado State University to make tiny samples of Gold-144, a molecule-sized nanogold cluster first isolated in 1995. Its structure had been theoretically predicted in 2009, and though never confirmed, Gold-144 has found numerous applications, including in tissue-imaging.

Hoping the test would confirm Gold-144’s structure, they analyzed the clusters at the European Synchrotron Radiation Source in Grenoble, and used the PDF method to infer their structure. To their surprise, they found an angular core, and not the sphere-like icosahedral core predicted. When they made a new sample and tried the experiment again, this time using synchrotrons at Brookhaven and Argonne national laboratories, the structure came back spherical.

“We didn’t understand what was going on, but digging deeper, we realized we had a polymorph,” said study coauthor Kirsten Jensen, formerly a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia, now a chemistry professor at the University of Copenhagen.

Further experiments confirmed the cluster had two versions, sometimes found together, each with a unique structure indicating they behave differently. The researchers are still unsure if Gold-144 can switch from one version to the other or, what exactly, differentiates the two forms.

To make their discovery, the researchers solved what physicists call the nanostructure inverse problem. How can the structure of a tiny nanoparticle in a sample be inferred from an x-ray signal that has been averaged over millions of particles, each with different orientations?

“The signal is noisy and highly degraded,” said Billinge. “It’s the equivalent of trying to recognize if the bird in the tree is a robin or a cardinal, but the image in your binoculars is too blurry and distorted to tell.”

“Our results demonstrate the power of PDF analysis to reveal the structure of very tiny particles,” added study coauthor Christopher Ackerson, a chemistry professor at Colorado State. “I’ve been trying, off and on, for more than 10 years to get the single-crystal x-ray structure of Gold-144. The presence of polymorphs helps to explain why this molecule has been so resistant to traditional methods.”

The PDF approach is one of several rival methods being developed to bring nanoparticle structure into focus. Now that it has proven itself, it could help speed up the work of describing other nanostructures.

The eventual goal is to design nanoparticles by their desired properties, rather than through trial and error, by understanding how form and function relate. Databases of known and predicted structures could make it possible to design new materials with a few clicks of a mouse.

The study is a first step.

“We’ve had a structure model for this iconic gold molecule for years and then this study comes along and says the structure is basically right but it’s got a doppelgänger,” said Robert Whetten, a professor of chemical physics at the University of Texas, San Antonio, who led the team that first isolated Gold-144. “It seemed preposterous, to have two distinct structures that underlie its ubiquity, but this is a beautiful paper that will persuade a lot of people.”

Here’s an image illustrating the two shapes,

Setting out to confirm the predicted structure of Gold-144, researchers discovered an entirely unexpected atomic arrangement (right). The two structures, described in detail for the first time, each have 144 gold atoms, but are uniquely shaped, suggesting they also behave differently. (Courtesy of Kirsten Ørnsbjerg Jensen)

Setting out to confirm the predicted structure of Gold-144, researchers discovered an entirely unexpected atomic arrangement (right). The two structures, described in detail for the first time, each have 144 gold atoms, but are uniquely shaped, suggesting they also behave differently. (Courtesy of Kirsten Ørnsbjerg Jensen)

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Polymorphism in magic-sized Au144(SR)60 clusters by Kirsten M.Ø. Jensen, Pavol Juhas, Marcus A. Tofanelli, Christine L. Heinecke, Gavin Vaughan, Christopher J. Ackerson, & Simon J. L. Billinge.  Nature Communications 7, Article number: 11859  doi:10.1038/ncomms11859 Published 14 June 2016

This is an open access paper.

Teijin and its fibres at Nano Tech 2016

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Teijin is a Japanese chemical and pharmaceutical company known to me due to its production of nanotechnology-enabled fibres. As a consequence, a Jan. 21, 2016 news item on Nanotechnology Now piqued by interest,

Teijin Limited announced today that it will exhibit a wide range of nanotech materials and products incorporating advanced Teijin technologies during the International Nanotechnology Exhibition and Conference (nano tech 2016), the world’s largest nanotechnology show, at Tokyo Big Sight in Tokyo, Japan from January 27 to 29 [2016].

A Jan. 21, 2016 Teijin news release, which originated the news item, offers further detail,

Teijin’s booth (Stand 4E-09) will present nanotech materials and products for sustainable transportation, information and electronics, safety and protection, environment and energy, and healthcare, including the following:

– Nanofront, an ultra-fine polyester fiber with an unprecedented diameter of just 700 nanometers, features slip-resistance, heat shielding, wiping and filtering properties. It is used for diverse applications, including sportswear, cosmetics and industrial applications such as filters and heat-shielding sheets.

– Carbon nanotube yarn (CNTy) is 100%-CNT continuous yarn offering high electrical and thermal conductivity, easy handling and flexibility. Uses including space, aerospace, medical and wearable devices are envisioned. A motor using CNTy as its coil, developed by Finnish Lappeenranta University of Technology Opening a new window, will be exhibited first time in Japan.

– NanoGram Si paste is a printed electronics material containing 20nm-diameter silicon nanoparticles for photovoltaic cells capable of high conversion efficiency.

– Teijin Tetoron multilayer film is a structurally colored multilayer polyester film that utilizes the interference of each multilayer’s optical path difference rather than dyes or pigments. Decorative films for automotive and other applications will be exhibited.

– High-performance membranes, including a high-precision porous thin polyethylene membrane and multilayer membrane composites for micro filters, are moisture-permeable waterproof sheets.

– Carbon Alloy Catalyst (CAC) (under development) is platinum free catalyst made from polyacrylonitrile (precursor of carbon fiber) in combination with iron species, which is less expensive and more readily available than platinum, enabling production for reduced cost and in higher volumes. Fuel cells in which the cathode consists of the CAC without the platinum catalyst can generate exceptionally high electric power.

– Carbon nanofiber (under development) is a highly conductive carbon nanofiber with an elliptical cross section consisting of well-developed graphite layers ordered in a single direction. Envisioned applications include additives for  lithiumion secondary batteries (LIBs) , thermal conducting materials and plastic-reinforcing materials, among others.

Teijin first came to my attention in 2010 with their Morphotex product, a fabric based on the nanostructures found on the Blue Morpho butterfly’s wing. I updated the story in an April 12, 2012 posting sadly noting that Morphotex was no longer available.

For anyone interested in the exhibition, here’s the nano tech 2016 website.

SeeThruEquity sees through Lomiko Metals

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The headline is a play on words. Lomiko Metals is in the graphene business (it owns graphite mines which can be turned into graphene and has part ownership of a number graphene-related businesses) and the material, graphene, could lead the way to transparent electronics. When you add an equity firm known as SeeThruEquity issuing a news release about Lomiko, well, the headline wrote itself.

A Dec. 14, 2015 SeeThruEquity news release on Yahoo Finance shares (pun!) the latest doings at Lomiko along with a stock price recommendation (Note: Links have been removed),

SeeThruEquity, a leading New York City based independent equity research and corporate access firm focused on smallcap and microcap public companies, today announced that it has issued an update note on Lomiko Metals, Inc. (TSXV: LMR.V, OTCQX: LMRMF).

The note is available here: LMR December 2015 Update. SeeThruEquity is an approved equity research contributor on Thomson First Call, Capital IQ, FactSet, and Zack’s. The report will be available on these platforms. The firm also contributes its estimates to Thomson Estimates, the leading estimates platform on Wall Street.

Based in Vancouver, BC, Lomiko Metals, Inc. (TSXV: LMR.V. OTCQX: LMRMF, “Lomiko”) is an exploration-stage company engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of resource properties that contain minerals for the new green economy, specifically graphite. In addition to developing high quality graphite plays, including the La Loutre Crystalline Flake Graphite Property and the Quatre Milles Graphite Properties in Quebec, Lomiko is pursuing synergistic growth opportunities in the technology and new energy markets, which leverage its position in the manufacturing graphene, a graphite derivative up to 200x stronger than structural steel that also possesses very high thermal and electrical conductivity properties. These opportunities include the 3D printing, lithium ion battery, LED drivers and power conversion products.

Promising results from infill drilling at La Loutre

As part of a drilling campaign leading to a 43-101 resource estimate, Lomiko intersected 21.55 meters of 11.58%, 57.95 meters of 3.36% including 6.10 meters of 13.66% and 28.75 meters at 4.44% flake graphite at the La Loutre. On December 4, 2015, Lomiko announced that they had intersected 37.40 meters of 4.41% including 10.25 meters of 5.62%, and 48.05 meters of 3.12% including 8.90 meters of 6.13% flake graphite at their 2,867.29 hectare La Loutre Crystalline Flake Graphite Property. A Drill Map is available on the Lomiko web site under quicklinks.

Lomiko management indicated that the results showed “excellent” data including near-surface, high grade flake graphite, helping further define the play’s potential. Lomiko acquired a 40% interest in this promising crystalline flake graphite play in September 2014, and has acquired another 40% interest since we initiated coverage on the company. As we indicated in our initiation of Lomiko, there are several long-term demand catalysts for high grade graphite, including from the lithium ion battery industry, automotive demand from projects similar to the Tesla Gigafactory — which promises to have 35GWh/year of production, as well as potential new applications of graphite derivative graphene, among others.

Launch of Spider Charger(TM) moving towards collaboration

Lomiko’s wholly owned subsidiary, Lomiko Technologies, appears to be nearing commercialization for its innovative new Spider Charger, which has been developed by the company as a result of technology acquired through Lomiko’s December 2014 licensing agreement with Megahertz Power Systems Ltd. The Spider Charger(TM) is an in-wall USB charging device that employs a sleek design while improving energy efficiency for customers and allowing up to eight electronic devices (two standard, 6 via USB ports) to charge safely at one time. Lomiko completed a prototype for the Spider Charger(TM) in November and has manufactured 250 units for use for demonstration with new potential commercial customers. There is clearly a large market potential for the Spider Charger(TM), which has applications for residential and commercial builders, airlines, schools, and businesses with clientele seeking charging stations for their portable electronic devices – such as coffee houses. Lomiko recently initiated a Kickstarter campaign to fund safety and green certifications for commercial use.

Maintain price target of C$0.19

We are maintaining our price target of C$0.19 for Lomiko Metals at this time. We see the company as an intriguing, speculative investment in the graphite and graphene markets.

Please review important disclosures at www.seethruequity.com.

About Lomiko Metals, Inc.

Lomiko Metals Inc. is a Canada-based, exploration-stage company. The Company is engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of resource properties that contain minerals for the new green economy. Its mineral properties include the La Loutre, Lac Des Iles, Quatre Milles Graphite Properties and the Vines Lake property which all have had major mineral discoveries.

Lomiko also has a 100% interest in its wholly owned subsidiary Lomiko Technologies Inc., an investor in graphene technology and manufacturer of electronic products.

For more information, visit www.lomiko.com.

About Lomiko Technologies Inc.

Lomiko Technologies was established in April, 2014 and currently holds 4.4 million shares of Graphene 3D Lab (www.Graphene3DLab.com), 40% Of Graphene Energy Storage Devices (www.Graphene-ESD.com), and a license for the manufacture and sale of three products from Megahertz.

Lomiko Technology owns 4.4 million shares of Graphene 3D Lab (TSXV: GGG, OTCQB: GPHBF ), 40% of Graphene ESD Corp and has licenses to produce three electronic products.

About SeeThruEquity

SeeThruEquity is an equity research and corporate access firm focused on companies with less than $1 billion in market capitalization. The research is not paid for and is unbiased. The company does not conduct any investment banking or commission based business. SeeThruEquity is approved to contribute its research to Thomson One Analytics (First Call), Capital IQ, FactSet, Zacks, and distribute its research to its database of opt-in investors. The company also contributes its estimates to Thomson Estimates, the leading estimates platform on Wall Street.

For more information visit www.seethruequity.com.

Please note, I’m not endorsing either the analysis or Lomiko Metals. That said, Lomiko Metals has made some interesting moves in attempts to develop applications for graphene. It’s all very well to have deposits of graphite flakes that can be turned into graphene but if there’s no market for graphene (applications for it) then who cares about the deposits? So, good on Lomiko for its development efforts.

One final comment, for those who do not know, graphene is the focus of much international interest in a race to find applications that utilize it. For example, the European Union has a 1B Euro research fund (the Graphene Flagship) being disbursed over a 10 year period.

Making diamonds at room temperature with a new carbon material

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Scientists at North Carolina State University (NCSU) claim to have found a new phase for solid carbon which allows them to create diamond materials at room temperature. From a Nov. 30, 2015 news item on Nanowerk,

Researchers from North Carolina State University have discovered a new phase of solid carbon, called Q-carbon, which is distinct from the known phases of graphite and diamond. They have also developed a technique for using Q-carbon to make diamond-related structures at room temperature and at ambient atmospheric pressure in air.

Phases are distinct forms of the same material. Graphite is one of the solid phases of carbon; diamond is another.

“We’ve now created a third solid phase of carbon,” says Jay Narayan, the John C. Fan Distinguished Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at NC State and lead author of three [?] papers describing the work. “The only place it may be found in the natural world would be possibly in the core of some planets.”

A Nov. 30, 2015 NCSU news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes some of the new material’s properties,

Q-carbon has some unusual characteristics. For one thing, it is ferromagnetic – which other solid forms of carbon are not. [definition from its Wikipedia entry: Ferromagnetism is the basic mechanism by which certain materials (such as iron) form permanent magnets, or are attracted to magnets.]

“We didn’t even think that was possible,” Narayan says.

In addition, Q-carbon is harder than diamond, and glows when exposed to even low levels of energy.

“Q-carbon’s strength and low work-function – its willingness to release electrons – make it very promising for developing new electronic display technologies,” Narayan says.

But Q-carbon can also be used to create a variety of single-crystal diamond objects. …

The news release describes the process for creating Q-carbon,

Researchers start with a substrate, such as such as sapphire, glass or a plastic polymer. The substrate is then coated with amorphous carbon – elemental carbon that, unlike graphite or diamond, does not have a regular, well-defined crystalline structure. The carbon is then hit with a single laser pulse lasting approximately 200 nanoseconds. During this pulse, the temperature of the carbon is raised to 4,000 Kelvin (or around 3,727 degrees Celsius) and then rapidly cooled. This operation takes place at one atmosphere – the same pressure as the surrounding air.

The end result is a film of Q-carbon, and researchers can control the process to make films between 20 nanometers and 500 nanometers thick.

By using different substrates and changing the duration of the laser pulse, the researchers can also control how quickly the carbon cools. By changing the rate of cooling, they are able to create diamond structures within the Q-carbon.

“We can create diamond nanoneedles or microneedles, nanodots, or large-area diamond films, with applications for drug delivery, industrial processes and for creating high-temperature switches and power electronics,” Narayan says. “These diamond objects have a single-crystalline structure, making them stronger than polycrystalline materials. And it is all done at room temperature and at ambient atmosphere – we’re basically using a laser like the ones used for laser eye surgery. So, not only does this allow us to develop new applications, but the process itself is relatively inexpensive.”

And, if researchers want to convert more of the Q-carbon to diamond, they can simply repeat the laser-pulse/cooling process.

If Q-carbon is harder than diamond, why would someone want to make diamond nanodots instead of Q-carbon ones? Because we still have a lot to learn about this new material.

“We can make Q-carbon films, and we’re learning its properties, but we are still in the early stages of understanding how to manipulate it,” Narayan says. “We know a lot about diamond, so we can make diamond nanodots. We don’t yet know how to make Q-carbon nanodots or microneedles. That’s something we’re working on.”

NC State has filed two provisional patents on the Q-carbon and diamond creation techniques.

While the news release mentions Narayan is the lead author of three papers about this work, only two papers are cited at the end of the news release.

Here are the links and citations,

Research Update: Direct conversion of amorphous carbon into diamond at ambient pressures and temperatures in air by Jagdish Narayan and Anagh Bhaumik. APL Mater. 3, 100702 (2015); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4932622 [Published Oct. 7, 2015]

Novel Phase of Carbon, Ferromagnetism and Conversion into Diamond by Jagdish Narayan and Anagh Bhaumik. Published online Nov. 30 [, 2015] in the Journal of Applied Physics  DOI: 10.1063/1.4936595

Both articles are open access.

Graphite research at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada) and NanoXplore’s (Montréal, Canada) graphene oxide production

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Graphite

Simon Fraser University (SFU) announced a partnership with Ontario’s Sheridan College and three Canadian companies (Terrella Energy Systems, Alpha Technologies, and Westport Innovations) in a research project investigating low-cost graphite thermal management products. From an April 9, 2015 SFU news release,

Simon Fraser University is partnering with Ontario’s Sheridan College, and a trio of Canadian companies, on research aimed at helping the companies to gain market advantage from improvements on low-cost graphite thermal management products.

 

Graphite is an advanced engineering material with key properties that have potential applications in green energy systems, automotive components and heating ventilating air conditioning systems.

 

The project combines expertise from SFU’s Laboratory for Alternative Energy Conversion with Sheridan’s Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Design Technologies.

 

With $700,000 in funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council’s (NSERC) College and Community Innovation program, the research will help accelerate the development and commercialization of this promising technology, says project lead Majid Bahrami, an associate professor in SFU’s School of Mechatronics Systems Engineering (MSE) at SFU’s Surrey campus.

 

The proposed graphite products take aim at a strategic $40 billion/year thermal management products market, Bahrami notes. 

 

Inspired by the needs of the companies, Bahrami says the project has strong potential for generating intellectual property, leading to advanced manufacturing processes as well as new, efficient graphite thermal products.

 

The companies involved include:

 

Terrella Energy Systems, which recently developed a roll-embossing process that allows high-volume, cost-effective manufacturing of micro-patterned, coated and flexible graphite sheets;

 

Alpha Technologies, a leading telecom/electronics manufacturer, which is in the process of developing next-generation ‘green’ cooling solutions for their telecom/electronics systems;

 

Westport Innovations, which is interested in integrating graphite heat exchangers in their natural gas fuel systems, such as heat exchangers for heavy-duty trucks.

 

Bahrami, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Alternative Energy Conversion Systems, expects the project will also lead to significant training and future business and employment opportunities in the manufacturing and energy industry, as well as the natural resource sector and their supply chain.

 

“This project leverages previous federal government investment into world-class testing equipment, and SFU’s strong industrial relationships and entrepreneurial culture, to realize collective benefits for students, researchers, and companies,” says Joy Johnson, SFU’s VP Research. “By working together and pooling resources, SFU and its partners will continue to generate novel green technologies and energy conversion solutions.”

 

Fast Facts:

  • The goal of the NSERC College and Community Innovation program is to increase innovation at the community and/or regional level by enabling Canadian colleges to increase their capacity to work with local companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
  • Canada is the fifth largest exporter of raw graphite.
  • …

I have mentioned graphite here before. Generally, it’s in relation to graphite mining deposits in Ontario and Québec, which seem to have been of great interest as a source for graphene production. A Feb. 20, 2015 posting was the the latest of those mentions and, coincidentally, it features NanoXplore and graphene, the other topic noted in the head for this posting.

Graphene and NanoXplore

An April 17, 2015 news item on Azonano makes a production announcement,

Group NanoXplore Inc., a Montreal-based company specialising in the production and application of graphene and its derivative materials, announced today that it is producing Graphene Oxide in industrial quantities. The Graphene Oxide is being produced in the same 3 metric tonne per year facility used to manufacture NanoXplore’s standard graphene grades and derivative products such as a unique graphite-graphene composite suitable for anodes in Li-ion batteries.

An April 16, 2015 NanoXplore news release on MarketWired, which originated the news item, describes graphene oxide and its various uses,

Graphene Oxide (GO) is similar to graphene but with significant amounts of oxygen introduced into the graphene structure. GO, unlike graphene, can be readily mixed in water which has led people to use GO in thin films, water-based paints and inks, and biomedical applications. GO is relatively simple to synthesise on a lab scale using a modified Hummers’ method, but scale-up to industrial production is quite challenging and dangerous. This is because the Hummers’ method uses strong oxidizing agents in a highly exothermic reaction which produces toxic and explosive gas. NanoXplore has developed a completely new and different approach to producing GO based upon its proprietary graphene production platform. This novel production process is completely safe and environmentally friendly and produces GO in volumes ranging from kilogram to tonne quantities.

“NanoXplore’s ability to produce industrially useful quantities of Graphene Oxide in a safe and scalable manner is a game changer, said Dr. Soroush Nazarpour, President and CEO of NanoXplore. “Mixing graphene with standard industrially materials is the key to bringing it to industrial markets. Graphene Oxide mixes extremely well with all water based solutions, and we have received repeated customer requests for water soluble graphene over the last two years”.

It sounds exciting but it would be helpful (for someone like me, who’s ignorant about these things) to know the graphene oxide market’s size. This would help me to contextualize the excitement.

You can find out more about NanoXplore here.

Single layer graphene as a solid lubricant

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Graphite (from which graphene springs) has been used as a solid lubricant for many years but it has limitations which researchers at the US Dept. of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are attempting to overcome by possibly replacing it with graphene. An Oct. 14, 2014 news item on phys.org describes the research (Note: A link has been removed),

Nanoscientist Anirudha Sumant and his colleagues at Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials and Argonne’s Energy Systems division applied a one-atom-thick layer of graphene, a two-dimensional form of carbon, in between a steel ball and a steel disk. They found that just the single layer of graphene lasted for more than 6,500 “wear cycles,” a dramatic improvement over conventional lubricants like graphite or molybdenum disulfide.

An Oct. 13, 2014 Argonne National Laboratory news release by Jared Sagoff, which originated the news item, provides more information about this research (Note: A link has been removed),

“For comparison,” Sumant said, “conventional lubricants would need about 1,000 layers to last for 1,000 wear cycles. That’s a huge advantage in terms of cost savings with much better performance.”

Graphite has been used as an industrial lubricant for more than 40 years, but not without certain drawbacks, Sumant explained.  “Graphite is limited by the fact that it really works only in humid environments. If you have a dry setting, it’s not going to be nearly as effective,” he said.

This limitation arises from the fact that graphite – unlike graphene – has a three-dimensional structure.  The water molecules in the moist air create slipperiness by weaving themselves in between graphite’s carbon sheets. When there are not enough water molecules in the air, the material loses its slickness.

Molybdenum disulfide, another common lubricant, has the reverse problem, Sumant said. It works in dry environments but not well in wet ones. “Essentially the challenge is to find a single all-purpose lubricant that works well for mechanical systems, no matter where they are,” he said.

Graphene’s two-dimensional structure gives it a significant advantage. “The material is able to bond directly to the surface of the stainless steel ball, making it so perfectly even that even hydrogen atoms are not able to penetrate it,” said Argonne materials scientist Ali Erdemir, a collaborator on the study who tested graphene-coated steel surfaces in his lab.

In a previous study in Materials Today, Sumant and his colleagues showed that a few layers of graphene works equally well in humid and dry environments as a solid lubricant, solving the 40-year-old puzzle of finding a flawless solid lubricant. However, the team wanted to go further and test just a single graphene layer.

While doing so in an environment containing molecules of pure hydrogen, they observed a dramatic improvement in graphene’s operational lifetime. When the graphene monolayer eventually starts to wear away, hydrogen atoms leap in to repair the lattice, like stitching a quilt back together. “Hydrogen can only get into the fabric where there is already an opening,” said Subramanian Sankaranarayanan, an Argonne computational scientist and co-author in this study. This means the graphene layer stays intact longer.

Researchers had previously done experiments to understand the mechanical strength of a single sheet of graphene, but the Argonne study is the first to explain the extraordinary wear resistance of one-atom-thick graphene.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the August 2014 study,

Extraordinary Macroscale Wear Resistance of One Atom Thick Graphene Layer by Diana Berman, Sanket A. Deshmukh, Subramanian K. R. S. Sankaranarayanan, Ali Erdemir, and Anirudha V. Sumant. Advanced Funtional Materials DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201401755 Article first published online: 26 AUG 2014

© 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

This article is behind a paywall.