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2D纳米材料独特的物理和电子特性，全世界对开发基于2D纳米材料的技术的兴趣越来越大。由于这些材料是原子级的薄，它们可以用来创建先进的电子产品，减少尺寸，重量，甚至增加透明度和灵活性的好处。此外，这些薄片甚至对气体是不可渗透的，并且可以用作完美的阻挡层以保持食物新鲜，或者可以引入小孔以产生具有降低的成本、改善的选择性和更高的渗透性的膜。已经开发了通过昂贵的高真空工艺在限制性的一组基底上和在相对小的面积上产生这些各种材料的单层的工艺。另一方面，正在开发基于印刷的较便宜的工艺，但导致厚的无序膜，其不产生上述独特的性质。滑铁卢大学的研究人员发现了一种薄膜形成和图案化过程，可以在空气-水界面上从一种或多种2D纳米材料中产生大面积单层，从而产生与真空沉积过程质量相似的薄膜。本发明还提供了一种方法，其中单层膜可以以与卷对卷加工相容的连续方式转移到任意基材上。申请的资金将用于评估这项技术的潜在市场，以确定进一步开发的商业可行性。我们预计这一新工艺将服务于加拿大的各个行业，使他们能够在电子、食品包装和水净化领域设计出先进的增值产品。对加拿大的好处将是通过创造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。石墨和二硫化钼等最有前途的片状二维纳米材料的原料是加拿大拥有大量供应的自然资源。增加需要这些散装材料的产品，从而增加需求，预计将增加出口，减少我国经济对石油的依赖。

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.