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posted by chromas on Friday April 20 2018, @10:57AM   Printer-friendly
from the ⬡-(aka-WHITE-HEXAGON) dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

MIT engineers have developed a continuous manufacturing process that produces long strips of high-quality graphene.

The team's results are the first demonstration of an industrial, scalable method for manufacturing high-quality graphene that is tailored for use in membranes that filter a variety of molecules, including salts, larger ions, proteins, or nanoparticles. Such membranes should be useful for desalination, biological separation, and other applications.

[...] For many researchers, graphene is ideal for use in filtration membranes. A single sheet of graphene resembles atomically thin chicken wire and is composed of carbon atoms joined in a pattern that makes the material extremely tough and impervious to even the smallest atom, helium.

Researchers, including Karnik's group, have developed techniques to fabricate graphene membranes and precisely riddle them with tiny holes, or nanopores, the size of which can be tailored to filter out specific molecules. For the most part, scientists synthesize graphene through a process called chemical vapor deposition, in which they first heat a sample of copper foil and then deposit onto it a combination of carbon and other gases.

Graphene-based membranes have mostly been made in small batches in the laboratory, where researchers can carefully control the material's growth conditions. However, Hart and his colleagues believe that if graphene membranes are ever to be used commercially they will have to be produced in large quantities, at high rates, and with reliable performance.

[...] The researchers set out to build an end-to-end, start-to-finish manufacturing process to make membrane-quality graphene.

The team's setup combines a roll-to-roll approach — a common industrial approach for continuous processing of thin foils — with the common graphene-fabrication technique of chemical vapor deposition, to manufacture high-quality graphene in large quantities and at a high rate.

Source: https://news.mit.edu/2018/manufacturing-graphene-rolls-ultrathin-membranes-0418


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @03:31PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @03:31PM (#669675)

    They just now figured out how to mass-produce the material. It's a bit early to demand the existence of mass-produced products based on it, don't you think?

    Imagine in the stone age:
    "Hey, look, I've found out how to make and control fire!"
    "Useless stuff. I've never seen anyone doing anything useful with fire."

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Friday April 20 2018, @03:49PM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Friday April 20 2018, @03:49PM (#669682) Journal

    There have been similar announcements for years about mass production of graphene, including from... you guessed it, MIT:

    Jan 2018: Standard Graphene succeeded in mass production of Graphene [globenewswire.com]
    2017: Explosions may be the answer to mass-producing graphene [engadget.com]
    2016: Mass producing graphene using microwaves [sciencedaily.com]
    Mass production of high-aspect-ratio few-layer-graphene by high-speed laminar flow [sciencedirect.com]
    2015: Breakthrough with New Technique for Graphene Production [dodlive.mil]
    MIT researchers have developed a way to mass produce graphene sheets [digitaltrends.com]
    How to make continuous rolls of graphene [mit.edu]
    This Scientist Invented a Simple Way to Mass-Produce Graphene [popularmechanics.com]

    It's time to put up or shut up.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @04:28PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @04:28PM (#669695)

      The older MIT article seems to describe exactly the process they now demonstrated. You know, from having an idea to having an actual working product, it takes some time.

      As far as I can tell, the only other article describing an already working production is the one from January this year. Which is merely 3 months ago.

  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday April 20 2018, @06:53PM

    by Immerman (3985) on Friday April 20 2018, @06:53PM (#669755)

    Of course, there's also not much point in mass producing the stuff unless there's some mass-consumer for it. Presumably a mass-producer of other products.

    But, if the graphene egg is indeed now possible to mass produce, then the chicken shouldn't be far behind - researchers have developed LOTS of applications for the stuff, the industry has largely been waiting on someone to actually produce it in quantities large enough to be useful. Filters are barely scratching the surface (though it's admittedly *incredible* as a water/vapor filter), it's one of the miracle materials of our time.

    And of course, if they can reliably make long sheets of graphene, you have to wonder how difficult it would be to convert that to mass-produced nanotubes. Heck, just rolling a sheet into a long spiral "tube" would probably get you many of the benefits. It might even spontaneously (or with some encouragement) re-link itself into multiwalled tubes, much as the outer layers of a spherical diamond will spontaneously re-link into graphene.