Graphene has long shown potential, but has previously only been produced on a very small scale, limiting how well it could be measured, understood and developed (ScienceDaily on Jan. 19, 2010).
Recently, LIU Zhaoping’s research group at the Ningbo Institute of Material Technology and Engineering (NIMTE), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), made an innovative progress in exfoliation of natural graphite, and achieved low-cost mass production of graphene.
The exfoliated graphene sheets are multilayered with thicknesses of 2-3 nm, lateral sizes of 5-15 μm, ultra-low defects and high conductivity. Stable dispersions of the graphene sheets can be prepared with various solvents such as water, ethanol, N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF), etc.
A small pilot line has been set up in the lab for a production scale of 1kg/batch. Small-lot products are right now on sale. Based on the mass production of graphene, the research group is going to develop its applications in conductive additive, energy storage, composite materials, and so on. (Reported by ZHOU Xufeng)(Images by NIMTE)
Group Contact
Prof. Zhaoping Liu
Email liuzp@nimte.ac.cn
Graphene suspension（0.5 wt.%） Graphene slurry（2.5 wt.%）