The challenges faced by the coatings industry today are as wide-ranging as the field itself. One of the biggest challenges is the increased need to meet sustainable and green production requirements, and incorporating this into existing finished products and raw materials. A popular and promising route to this is offered in graphene.
Graphene is an atomically thin sheet, a 2D layer of carbon atoms arranged in the form of a honeycomb lattice. Since it was first isolated by Profs Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov in Manchester in 2004, it has been touted as a “miracle material” because of its wide-ranging astonishing traits, with Geim and Novoselov receiving the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work. The lightest, strongest, thinnest material known, it is unique among carbon additives, with exceptional properties and multi-functionality. It is 200 times stronger than steel, more electrically conductive than copper, and more thermally conductive than diamond.
No longer just a pet project in the laboratory, graphene has the potential to solve countless real world problems across many industries. A particularly exciting area of development is graphene as an additive for coatings. Graphene coatings, like graphene itself, are multi-functional: they can be anti-bacterial, flame retardant, thermally conductive, and electrically conductive, to name but a few possibilities.
A unique property of graphene films is their impermeability to vapours and gases, making them a game-changing technology in applications such as anti-corrosion coatings. Corrosion is estimated to cost the British economy alone £10 billion per annum, mainly affecting major infrastructure sectors such as construction, petrochemicals and transport. Typically, organic coatings loaded with hazardous or environmentally harmful metals are used to protect such structures, so it is vital to find improved and sustainable alternative solutions. The introduction of graphene is amazingly effective for this. Just last year, scientists from the Department of Chemical, Materials and Production Engineering at the University of Naples Federico II showed how adding graphene nanoflakes into a water-based epoxy resin improved the coating’s anti-corrosion performance without affecting the curing process or the adhesion properties. Looking ahead to bringing such a coating to market, improving performance without needing to change processes is invaluable.
Figure 2 Transmission electron microscope (TEM)
images of Graphitene graphene
In addition, thanks to its unique crystal structure, graphene can always bring mechanical reinforcement as a premium to coatings. Graphene-reinforced materials have enormous potential for aerospace and automotive applications. These materials can reduce weight, saving fuel and operation costs, while also improving performance, such as crack-resistance. Such coatings can also withstand wide temperature variations and provide electrical conductivity for lightning strike protection and EMI shielding of electronic components.
With such a wealth of beneficial properties and exciting innovations, graphene looks set to bring new strength to coatings across the board. Ready to supply the materials for these developments is Graphitene, a leading graphene manufacturing company in Europe, founded in 2012. With HQ in London, a manufacturing plant in North Lincolnshire, and R&D offices in both Trondheim, Norway, and Tartu, Estonia, Graphitene focuses on large volume high-quality production tailored to individual customer needs. The company offers a full range of carbon nanomaterials: graphene and graphene oxides, expanded and expandable graphite, doped and microporous graphene, which can be further formulated in admixtures, or dispersed in resins or incorporated into polymer masterbatches, pellets, filaments, films and fibers. Through a scalable, fast, environmentally friendly one-step process, Graphitene can conduct large scale production with high quality, making use of in-house nanotechnology expertise for materials functionalisation. To find out more about the company and available products, visit the website at www.graphitene.com.
