Graphene CVD System - Moorfield Associates

石墨烯是碳的一种二维形式，只有一个原子厚，由于一系列令人兴奋的结构、电气和机械性能而引起了人们的极大兴趣。这些性质意味着石墨烯将在许多技术中找到重要的应用，包括能源生产和储存、传感器、显示器、电子和先进复合材料。为了开发相关产品，工业界和学术界需要方便地获得石墨烯样品。然而，由于商业材料的高成本以及与在内部建立合成系统相关的困难，这种获取目前受到限制。我们已经发现了一个商业机会，可以开发一种产品，使用户能够按需生产高质量的石墨烯。该产品将采用化学气相沉积(CVD)方法，该方法被认为是高质量石墨烯的可扩展合成的最有前途的方法，并将进行创新设计，以允许优惠的定价、紧凑的尺寸、快速的样品吞吐量以及降低资源使用和运行成本。这些功能是非常可取的，目前无法获得；因此，尽管存在竞争对手的系统，我们的产品仍将吸引潜在客户。在这个阶段，我们已经完成了验证基本操作的原则证明研究。该项目将建立在这一初步工作的基础上，并涉及测试系统的设计、建造和验证。主要成果将是用户评论、生产的石墨烯的特征和组装路线的确定，这些信息将使我们能够建立一个发射前的原型单元。该项目将帮助英国石墨烯行业的发展，以形成一个不断增长的全球市场的一部分，并将支持具有战略重要性的教育和培训。

Graphene is a two-dimensional form of carbon, just one atom thick, which is attracting muchinterest due to an array of exciting structural, electrical and mechanical properties. Theseproperties mean that graphene will find important applications in numerous technologies,including energy generation and storage, sensors, displays, electronics and advancedcomposites. For developing related products, industry and academia require easy access tographene samples. However, such access is presently limited due to the high cost ofcommercially available material and the difficulties associated with establishing syntheticsystems in-house. We have identified a business opportunity to develop a product that willenable users to produce high-quality graphene, on-demand. This product will implement thechemical vapour deposition (CVD) method, considered most promising for scalable synthesisof high-quality graphene, and will be innovatively designed to allow for favorable pricing,compact size, rapid sample throughput and reductions in resource usage and running costs.These features are highly desirable and currently unavailable; as such, our product will beattractive to potential customers despite the presence of rival systems. At this stage, we havecompleted proof-of-principle studies to validate basic operation. The project will build on thisinitial work and involve the design, construction and proofing of a test system. Key outcomeswill be user commentary, characterisation of the graphene produced and identification ofassembly routes, information that will enable us to establish a pre-launch prototype unit. Theproject will aid development of the UK graphene industry to form part of a growingworldwide market, and will also support education and training in strategically-importantareas.