While the graphite price has rallied in recent times on the back of rising demand for lithium-ion battery technology, it could soon be replaced by one of graphite’s building blocks: graphene.
Graphene’s robust nature makes it a popular material, with more than 1 million metric tonnes mined globally every year.
It is 200 times stronger than steel with five times the conductivity of graphite and has the largest volume to surface area ratio of any material. The isotropic heat conductor also has the highest recorded electrical current density, about 1 million times that of copper.
The Vortex Fluidic Device is a suitcase-sized piece of equipment that applies very high sheer forces to liquids fed into the system through spinning a tube at high velocity.
Created in 2015, the device was awarded an Ig Nobel Award when it demonstrated how to un-boil an egg.
Used initially to slice carbon nanotubes using only water, a solvent and a laser, the VFD will be tested to prove its potential as a commercially viable graphene producer.
First Graphite managing director Craig McGuckin said graphene uses were applicable to a vast range of industries and he believed the material would eventually be used in most modern technology.
“What is required is creating high quality graphene from graphite, doing so quickly and efficiently and that is what we are trying to take up now,” he said.
“We see the VFD partnering with our own processes to assist greatly in creating different types of graphene for different uses.”
Flinders University professor and VFD creator Colin Raston said graphite was made up of multiple crystalline layers of graphene that could be stripped by his machine, instead of using harsh chemicals, which generated defects and changed the properties of the graphite.
“You can’t keep making graphene the same way anymore, you need to make it better and address the waste issues as well,” he said.
“Given the capabilities of the VFD, which can cut through graphite with precision, we are keen to explore the operating parameters of producing graphite.”
