Production, Modification and Scale-up of Graphene Sponge for Supercapacitor Application

石墨烯是一种新的神奇材料，由于其独特的高性能特性，它已经出现在所有研究计划的最前沿。电化学超级电容器因其比电池具有更高的功率密度而受到越来越多的关注。滑铁卢大学的于爱平教授已经与Grafoid公司合作，通过NSERC CRD对石墨烯进行改性，用于超级电容器技术的开发（2013年11月- 12月）。2015)项目和合作非常成功，已经取得了令人兴奋的成果，包括发表了几篇论文，两项正在申请的专利，以及一个商标产品海绵碳tm。海绵碳是由I类产品（纯石墨烯海绵）和II类产品（涂覆石墨烯在聚氨酯海绵上）组成。由于之前的CRD计划将于2015年12月结束。为了继续探索生产的新产品，并在能源存储领域寻求更多机会，Grafoid和Yu博士计划在这个新提出的项目上工作。石墨烯海绵，也称为石墨烯气凝胶或泡沫，是一种多孔，低密度，高表面积和高导电性/导热性的材料，自然使其成为储能应用的最佳候选者之一，如超级电容器，燃料电池和电池，以及用于电子，EMI屏蔽等热界面材料和导电粘合剂的聚合物复合材料的填料。在这次CRD中，Grafoid和Yu博士的团队计划进一步改进石墨烯海绵的生产，并通过化学改性和操作进一步改善海绵的性能。改性后的石墨烯海绵将用作超级电容器的电极。进一步扩大材料和工艺的规模将在不同的水平上进行，以便Grafoid接管技术并将其应用到自己的产品线中。目标是改进后的海绵将显着改善电容并达到约30-50 Wh/kg的能量密度。所提出的新材料和新技术将显著改变石墨烯海绵的表面特性，提高超级电容器的性能。该团队坚信，在拟议的研究中取得的进展将使Grafoid成功地应用这些高科技材料，并向市场推出高性能产品。

Graphene is the new wonder material that has emerged at the forefront of all research initiatives due to its unique and high performance-enabling properties. Electrochemical supercapacitors become more and more popular as it has much high power density than batteries. Prof. Aiping Yu at the University of Waterloo has already partnered with Grafoid Inc. on modification of graphene for supercapacitor technology development through NSERC CRD (Nov. 2013-Dec. 2015) program and the collaboration is very successful, has already reached exciting achievements, including a few published papers, two pending patents, and a trade mark product SpongycarbonTM . SpongycarbonTM is composed of a type I product which is a pure graphene sponge, and a type II product which is graphene coated on the polyurethane sponge. Since previous CRD program will end Dec. 2015. To continue to explore the produced new product and pursue more opportunity in energy storage filed, Grafoid and Dr. Yu have planned to work on this newly proposed project. Graphene sponge, also called graphene aerogel or foam, is a porous, low density, high surface area and high electrical/thermal conductivity material, naturally making itself one of the best candidates for energy storage application, such as supercapacitor, fuel cell and battery, as well as filler for polymer composites used for thermal interface materials and conductive adhesive in electronic, EMI shielding, etc. Typically in this CRD, Grafoid and Dr. Yu' team is planning to work on further improve the production of the graphene sponge, and further improve the properties of the sponge through chemical modification and manipulation. The modified and optimized graphene sponge will be employed to be used as electrodes in supercapacitor. Further scale-up of the material and process will be performed at different level in order for Grafoid to take over the technology and implement into their own product line. The objective is that the improves sponge will show significantly improved capacitance and reaching energy density approximately 30-50 Wh/kg. The proposed new materials and technology will significantly change the surface properties of graphene sponge and improve the performance of supercapacitors. the team strongly believes the progress made in the proposed research will allow Grafoid to successfully apply these high-tech materials and launch high performance products to the market.