Wednesday, January 6, 2016

No. 888: Reducing the price of graphene to less than half (January 5, 2016)

Technology:
Osaka Gas developed a technology to reduce the price of graphene to less than half. The company mixed coal-derived fluorene and water, etc. With the help of an additive, it successfully made the resulting product collide with graphite to extract graphene. Because the traditional method to extract graphene needs equipment that creates a vacuum state, it costs more than 20,000 yen to produce 1 kg of graphene. The newly-developed method increases the production efficiency by more than two times besides reducing the production cost to less than half. The company will begin full production within the year.

ADEKA is scheduled to start commercial production of graphene under license from the University of Tokyo. The company will mix graphite and special chemicals and extract graphene while radiating micro waves to graphite. The company thinks that it is possible to reduce the production cost to about 10,000 yen per kg. If the price of graphene is reduced to half of the present level, it will be mixed with resin to build stronger and lighter automotive parts, radiation material, conducting material, touch panel, electrode of smartphone. New Energy and IndustrialTechnology Development Organization (NEDO) reckons that the world market of graphene will grow from 1.3 billion yen in 2013 to 100 billion yen in 2030. 

Graphene: The future of solar energy technology


World's smallest ENE-FARM 
with high generation efficiency from Osaka Gas