Graphene possesses outstanding electronic and mechanical properties and is light-weight, configurable and transparent. These unique characteristics will support many exciting improvements of a vast variety of applications used every day. Graphene’s change-effecting potential is so enormous, in fact, that it inspired BGT Materials’s tagline: Redefining Everything!
To meet the variety of needs our customers have, BGT Materials offers a comprehensive catalog of graphene products including CVD graphene, graphene ink, graphene oxide, graphene-enhanced anode materials, and graphene field-effect transistors.
Graphene synthesized by CVD (chemical vapor deposition) is hallmarked by its continuous film-like structure; ultra-thin, flexible, and highly conductive making it ideal for applications such as flexible electronics. Because CVD graphene has the highest electrical and thermal conductivity ever discovered, it has the potential to complement existing transparent conductive materials used in touch panels and displays to enable truly flexible devices. The thickness, or number of layers, of CVD graphene can be precisely controlled and it also has the highest purity of carbon among all graphene-based forms.
Graphene nanoplatelets and graphene oxide consist of graphene flakes of one or few layers with a lateral size of few to tens of micrometers. Powdered graphene can be readily mixed with other components to form graphene-enhanced composites such as our high-performing silicon-graphene battery anode material. Like CVD graphene, graphene powders provide excellent thermal and electrical conductivity to the matrix materials they are mixed with. Additionally, graphene in powder form has a very high specific surface area – incredibly thin but wide – which significantly bolsters the mechanical strength and surface hardness of any composite to which it is added.
A subset of existing applications that graphene could improve:
- E-paper: The inherent thin, flexible and light-weight nature of graphene can elevate “E-paper” giving end-users the ability to it fold and reconfigure the size and shape of their electronic devices.
- Flexible displays: Using graphene as the electrode in displays liberates the display from the limits of its rigid substrate; enabling electronic components to sit on curved surfaces and floating sheets.
- Smart glass: Introducing graphene as a flexible transparent electrode in “smart glass” objects, such as a window, creates a light-weight, rollable device that also gives users control over the light that passes through the glass.
- Lighting (LED and OLED): Superb electrical conductivity allows graphene to be used as the LED and OLED electrode. The uniform light transmittance and superior transparency of graphene guarantee the high efficiency and undistorted color from LED and OLED.
- Flexible Sensors: Flexible graphene electrodes can greatly expand the force, pressure, mechanical displacement of current sensing technologies.
- Transparent actuators: Graphene’s mechanical advantages, elasticity and transparency could support an electrode for actuators that opens doors for many novel applications, such as tunable lenses.
- Batteries: High surface area (over 2600 m2/g), chemical tolerance, and excellent electrical conductivity render graphene an attractive electrode material for high-performing capacity lithium ion batteries.
- Supercapacitors: Graphene can be used to form flexible supercapacitors that deliver ultrahigh power due to its high theoretical surface area (2600 m2/g) and electrical conductivity.
- High-speed electronics (transistor): With the addition of graphene’s extremely high carrier mobility – even at room temperature – could empower an operating speed of up to 400 GHz for a transistor.
- Biomedical: Graphene’s combined capabilities of chemical stability, thinness, permeability, and strength make it an extremely efficient compliment for drug delivery, cancer therapy and biosensing.
- Water desalination: The incomparable strength, thinness, and barrier-layer capabilities of graphene can block salt ions while simultaneously allowing water molecules to pass through rapidly and efficiently.
- DNA sequencing: Ultra-thin graphene provides an extremely precise test platform for DNA strand sequencing platforms as the ionic current can recognize even a single DNA base. As molecules pass through the holes, distinguishable ionic current is measured to decipher the sequence.