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

石墨烯是一种新的奇特材料，由于其独特的高性能性能，已出现在所有研究活动的前沿。电化学超级电容器因其比电池具有更高的功率密度而越来越受到人们的青睐。滑铁卢大学的余爱平教授已经与Grafoid Inc.合作，通过NSERC CRD(2013年11月至12月)对石墨烯进行改性，以开发超级电容器技术。2015)计划和合作非常成功，已经取得了令人振奋的成就，包括几篇已发表的论文，两项正在申请的专利，以及商标产品海绵碳TM。海绵碳TM由第一类产品和第二类产品组成，第一类产品是纯石墨烯海绵，第二类产品是在聚氨酯海绵上包覆石墨烯。因为之前的CRD计划将于2015年12月结束。为了继续探索生产的新产品，并在储能领域寻求更多机会，Grafoid和Yu博士计划在这个新提出的项目上开展工作。石墨烯海绵又称石墨烯气凝胶或泡沫，是一种多孔、低密度、高比表面积和高导电/导热性的材料，自然使其成为超级电容器、燃料电池、电池等储能应用的最佳候选者之一，也是聚合物复合材料的填充剂，用于热界面材料和电子、电磁屏蔽等领域的导电粘合剂。经过改性和优化的石墨烯海绵将被用作超级电容器的电极。材料和工艺的进一步放大将在不同的水平上进行，以便Grafoid接管技术并应用到他们自己的产品线中。目标是使改进后的海绵的容量显著提高，能量密度达到约30-50Wh/kg。提出的新材料和新工艺将显著改变石墨烯海绵的表面性质，并提高超级电容器的性能。该团队坚信，拟议中的研究取得的进展将使Grafoid能够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.