Polymer composites with graphene

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With the increasing effects of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions on climate change, there is also increasing interest to alternatives to internal combustion engines for mobility. Battery electric vehicles are one route, and another is fuel cells. There is increasing interest in polymer composites that are not only mechanically strong and lightweight, but also have other properties, such as electrical and thermal conductivity. An application for such polymer composites is in proton membrane fuel cells, and specifically the bipolar fuel cell plates which make up a significant amount of the cost and weight of current fuel cells. One means to have electrical conductivity is by the addition of carbon fillers to the polymer matrix - carbon black, carbon nanotubes, graphite fiber have all been used in the past. Graphene is a more recent entry into the market as a carbon conductive filler because of its interesting properties due to its two dimensional layer geometry. However, its use has been stalled because of high costs and availability. Hydrograph Clean Power Inc, a Canadian company, has developed an aerosol based process to create pure graphene without chemical or mechanical processing normally required from the graphite to graphene processing routes. The aerosol gel formation of graphene has provided some interesting properties and this research will undertake a study of the Hydrograph graphene in thermoset resins to understand the effect of the filler material on mechanical, electrical and thermal properties, through compression molding of samples in simple plaque geometries. The target application in mind will be bipolar fuel cell plates and those product requirements will drive the design of the material systems in terms of graphene content, as well as any other hybrid combinations of carbon fillers that have been shown to improve properties. The outcomes of this research will provide valuable material and product design information for the Hydrograph material to help increase the supply and use of graphene for applications that require lightweight and superior mechanical and energy properties. Broader use of such advanced material systems will accelerate the development of alternative systems for mobililty to reduce emissions of GHG.