Company funded research project at UCSB completes initial development of a graphene fabrication process and system
Due to its breakthrough natural properties, many experts believe that graphene is the miracle material that will power the next generation of electronics, communication and composites. However, the key obstacle to the widespread use of graphene today is the high manufacturing cost of high quality graphene. The least expensive method, CVD, currently used in the electronics industry is still too expensive for enabling mass-market graphene applications such as flexible electronics, unbreakable touchscreens, sensors, and energy.
The UCSB research team led by, Dr. Kaustav Banerjee, has successfully engineered a low cost CVD system that is optimized for graphene production using proprietary processes, catalysts and techniques. By fully optimizing and innovating various steps in the process the team has produced very high quality graphene. The system can also be used to customize doping to create application specific graphene.
Bill Beifuss, CEO of Carbon Sciences, commented, “After a very intense and highly focused development effort by Dr. Banerjee’s team, we are finally seeing very promising results. Now that the team has demonstrated a low cost laboratory method with proprietary processes, we can begin to look at transforming that into a viable commercial technology. Some of the steps in the process are truly innovative and are very likely to dramatically reduce the cost of making large quantities of graphene.”
Carbon Sciences is currently funding a year long sponsored research program at UCSB for the development of a low cost graphene manufacturing process.
About Carbon Sciences, Inc.
Carbon Sciences is focused on the development of a breakthrough technology to mass-produce graphene, the new miracle material. Graphene, a sheet of pure carbon that is only one atom thick, is flexible, transparent, impermeable to moisture, stronger than diamonds and more conductive than gold. Ever since the Nobel Prize was awarded for its discovery, experts believe graphene to be the miracle material that will enable revolutionary applications such as bendable touchscreen displays, rapid charge batteries, super-capacitors, low cost solar cells, extreme high-speed semiconductors, biosensors, as well as water purification. While the raw materials to make graphene are readily available, the lack of an industrial scale manufacturing process has hindered its commercial use. Carbon Sciences has targeted the development of a breakthrough process that will transform natural gas into commercial size sheets of graphene that can be fine-tuned with application-specific electrical and materials properties.
Source: Carbon Sciences
