TAGS: Polymer Reinforcement
A Sussex team has developed a technique that gives detailed information about the size and thickness of graphene particles. The technique uses a non-destructive, laser-based method for looking at the particles as a whole, and lets them quickly build a detailed picture of the distribution of particles in a given material.
Standardization of Measurements
At the moment the graphene industry is a bit of a wild frontier; it’s very difficult to compare different products because there is no agreed way of measuring them. That’s where studies like this come in.
It’s really an important issue for any business looking to reap the benefits of graphene (or any other nanomaterial, for that matter) in their products. Often using the wrong material can either have no benefit at all, or even make product performance worse.
A particular example is composite materials like graphene-reinforced plastics. If a poor-quality graphene material is used it can cause parts to fail instead of providing the improved strength expected.
This can be a big issue for industries such as automotive and aerospace, where there is enormous effort behind replacing heavier metal parts with lighter composite materials (like carbon fibre) that are just as strong. If graphene and other nanomaterials are to play a role in reducing weight and cost then agreed standards are really important.
Raman Spectrometer to Determine Quality of Nanomaterial
Aline Amorim Graf, a co-author of the paper in the team at the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Sussex, said:
“
Some manufacturers say they produce graphene but actually – no doubt inadvertently - produce a form of graphite. Some will charge up to £500 per gram. The trouble is there’s no standardization. What we’ve done is to create a new way to measure the quality of nanomaterials like graphene. We use a Raman spectrometer to do this, and have created an algorithm to automate the process. In this way, we can determine the quality, size and thickness of the sample.”
Professor Alan Dalton, co-Director of the Sussex program for quantum research and co-author of the paper, said:
“
This is truly an important area of research for our team. We believe that our new metric will be of great help to industry, researchers and standards bodies alike who are key-stakeholders in the development of 2D materials towards commercialization."
The Sussex team continue their research and are open to checking the quality of graphene on a consultative basis.
Source: University of Sussex