Vol 9 Issue 2

A sustainable economy is a major aspiration for governments and corporations alike. As we head into the future recycling and upcycling of materials is a major part of this. In principle, plastics should be relatively straightforward to recycle. In practise this is quite challenging because different types of plastics are often bonded together, to achieve different performance criteria, and often end up in waste dumps at the end of the product’s life because these bonded composites are often impossible to recycle. The Ford Motor Company has been making progress addressing this challenge with Prof James Tour’s team at Rice University in the USA. A few days ago, they published the results of their joint work (p.14). They have proved that a variety of waste plastics from end-of-life vehicles can be made into flash graphene powder. The flash graphene was used to make new graphene enhanced polymers which had better mechanical performance, so this can be considered as a prime example of upcycling rather than recycling, (upcycling is the process of converting a material into a new resource of higher quality, value and increased functionality). Ford and Rice are creating an important chapter in the graphene story with this work. Two new two-dimensional (2D) materials have been created for the first time this month. In 2012, a new 2D allotrope (a new form) of carbon called graphyne was thought to be possible to make and some of its properties were predicted. A decade later, a team of chemists at the University of Colorado has actually made small amounts of the material for the first time (p.15). The other new 2D materials are called transition metal carbo-chalcogenides, more easily termed TMCCs. These have been made by a joint team in the USA and Sweden. TMCCs have a combination of electrical conductivity and stability that make them attractive candidates for electronics and energy storage applications. The manufacturing process is also relatively straightforward and scaleable in comparison with similar materials and this could make them a viable commercial proposition in the future. Returning to the sustainability theme; this month, UK graphene manufacturer Levidian Nanosystems Ltd. announced a £700 million deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to supply 500 of its graphene production units. This will capture half a million tonnes of CO2 equivalents (CO2e) over the next five years. The system works by turning methane gas into graphene. The graphene is almost a by-product in this case. The most logical use will be to further reduce CO2 emissions by using the graphene to enhance concrete for many construction projects in the UAE. Graphene is certainly making an impact right where it is needed most – furthering the sustainability agenda, you can find out more by reading on… Adrian Nixon 1st June 2022

Graphene enhanced concrete features several times this month. It seems that the world is starting to pick up on the environmental benefits. A new reservoir dam is under construction at Almudévar, northeast of Zaragoza in Spain. Graphenea and the University of Madrid have a graphene enhanced concrete trial on site. The trial is on non-structural components as you would expect for a new material on a critical project. The early results are showing that the addition of graphene will make the concrete last 50% longer. The Almudévar project would be notable just for this. What is interesting is the reaction of the leadership of the construction company, Lantania Group, building the dam. "This new additive is undoubtedly a step forward in improving the sustainability of infrastructures. By increasing its durability, we will be able to make concrete a more environmentally friendly material," Federico Ávila, President of Lantania When the top management of big construction companies start to make public statements like this, we know that things are starting to change. Another development with a sustainable theme is the industrial pilot scale recycling of end of life lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles. The Hydrovolt plant in Norway can already recycle 12,000 tonnes of battery packs each year. The company reclaims 95% of the plastics and metals but the graphite electrodes were a waste stream. Graphmatech and Graphenea have collaborated to take the graphite waste and upcycle it into graphene oxide. This is a very encouraging development. Moving from graphene powders to large area sheet graphene, we have a special feature this month exploring the new material that will emerge in the foreseeable future. This is a Van der Waals homostructure of multi-layer large-area sheet single-crystal graphene. We propose a new name for this material; Graphene Super-Laminate (GSL). We will explore the properties of GSL in future issues, it promises to realise the full potential of graphene’s superlative properties. In this issue we start to see this new material being considered as the last piece of the puzzle for a world changing technology – the space elevator. Visions don’t come much bigger than this, and it just might be that graphene could play a key role in making this happen. You can find out about this and more in this issue, dear reader. Adrian Nixon 1st August 2022