Advanced materials company, First Graphene Limited (“FGR” or “the Company”) is pleased to announce the signing of a worldwide licensing agreement with The University of Manchester.
The licence grants exclusive rights to patented technology for the manufacture of metal oxide decorated graphene materials using a proprietary electrochemical process. These new graphene-hybrid materials offer the makers of supercapacitors a new class of highperformance capacitor materials.
Supercapacitors offer high power-density energy storage, with the possibility of multiple charge/discharge cycles and short charging times. The market for supercapacitor devices is forecast to grow at 20% per year reaching a revenue value of ca. AUD$3.1 billion by 2022. As with batteries, growth of the supercapacitor market is challenged by the supply of the right, high-performing materials which is dominated today by the use of microporous carbon nanomaterials with typical gravimetric capacitance of 50 to 150 Farads/g. Earlier research by The University of Manchester shows that very high capacitance materials of up to 500 Farads/g
are now possible which outperform existing materials. The manufacturing process to be employed builds on the Company’s existing electrochemical processing expertise which is scaled to 100 tonne/year capacity at FGR’s manufacturing site at Henderson, WA.
Published research1 by Prof. Robert Dryfe and Prof. Ian Kinloch of The University of Manchester reveals how high capacity, microporous materials can be manufactured by the electrochemical processing of graphite raw materials with transition metal ions leading to metal oxide decorated graphene materials which have very high gravimetric capacitance of up to 500 Farads/g.
These materials can be manufactured at scale using FGR’s established expertise in electrochemical materials processing. As the materials are grown in-situ through electrochemical processing they have significant advantages over previous solutions that employed simple mixing of graphene and metal oxide materials.
Prof. Dryfe has secured funding from the UK EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Council) for the further optimisation of the metal oxide /graphene materials. On successful completion of this study FGR intends to build a kilogram pilot scale capability in its laboratories within the GEIC to enable the introduction of these materials to supercapacitor device manufacturers.