Market assessment for film forming process to create large-area monolayers of exfoliated 2D nanomaterials

由于石墨烯和二硫化钼等二维纳米材料独特的物理和电子特性，世界范围内对开发基于它们的技术的兴趣日益浓厚。由于这些材料是原子薄的，它们可以用来制造先进的电子产品，具有更小的尺寸和重量，甚至具有透明度和灵活性的额外好处。此外，这些薄片甚至不渗透气体，可以用作完美的阻隔层，以保持食物新鲜，或者可以引入小孔来制造成本更低、选择性更高、渗透性更高的膜。通过昂贵的、高真空的工艺，在一组有限的衬底和相对较小的面积上，已经开发出了制造这些不同材料单层的工艺。另一方面，基于印刷的较便宜的工艺正在开发中，但结果是厚的，无序的薄膜，不能产生上述独特的性能。滑铁卢大学（University of Waterloo）的研究人员发现了一种薄膜形成和图图化工艺，可以在空气-水界面上用一种或多种二维纳米材料制造大面积单层，产生的薄膜质量与真空沉积工艺相似。它还提供了一种方法，使单层薄膜可以以与卷对卷加工兼容的连续方式转移到任意基材上。所要求的资金将用于评估这项技术的潜在市场，以确定进一步发展的商业可行性。我们期望这一新工艺将服务于加拿大的各种行业，使他们能够在电子、食品包装和水净化领域设计先进的增值产品。加拿大将通过创建新的加拿大企业和加拿大制造的产品以及由此产生的就业机会和收入而受益。最有前途的剥落二维纳米材料（如石墨和二硫化钼）的原料是加拿大拥有相当多供应的自然资源。增加对这些大宗原料的需求，从而增加需求，预计将增加出口，减少我们经济对石油的依赖。

There has been growing world-wide interest in developing technologies based on 2D nanomaterials such as graphene and molybdenum disulfide due to their unique physical and electronic properties. Since these materials are atomically thin, they can be used to create advanced electronics with reduced size, weight or even with the added benefit of transparency and flexibility. Furthermore, these thin sheets are impermeable to even gases and can be used as perfect blocking layers to keep food fresh or small holes can be introduced to create membranes with reduced cost, improved selectivity and higher permeability. Processes have been developed to create monolayers of these various materials by expensive, high vacuum, processes, on a restrictive set of substrates and over relatively small areas. On the other hand, less expensive processes based on printing are being developed but result in thick, disordered films which do not yield the unique properties mentioned above. Researchers at the University of Waterloo have discovered a film forming and patterning process to create large area monolayers from one or more 2D nanomaterials at an air-water interface that yield films of similar quality to the vacuum deposition processes. It also provides a method for which monolayer films can be transferred to arbitrary substrates and in a continuous fashion compatible with roll-to-roll processing. The funding requested will be used to assess the potential market for this technology to determine the commercial feasibility for further development. We expect that this new process will serve a variety of Canadian industries enabling them to engineer advanced, value-added products in the fields of electronics, food packaging, and water purification. The benefits to Canada will be through the creation of new Canadian ventures and Canadian-made products and the resulting jobs and revenue generated. The feedstock materials for the most promising exfoliated 2D nanomaterials such as graphite and molybdenum disulfide are natural resources for which Canada has a considerable supply. Increasing the products requiring these bulk materials, and thus the demand, are expected to increase exports and reduce our economy's dependency on oil.