Graphene
Metalysis foresee the material having an impact in industries such as aerospace and automotive, among others.
Metal powder manufacturer, Metalysis has successfully produced graphene using the company’s very own electrochemical process.
The South Yorkshire-based company expect the ‘wonder material’ to revolutionise a host of future applications across a wide range of sectors, some of which may utilise 3D printing.
Single layer sheets of graphene have been synthesised at the company’s industrial processing facilities, as well as bilayer and low multi-layer amalgamations. A group of scientists will continue to focus on differentiating and separating the single atom width, highly lucrative sheets. This comprises research teams from the University of Manchester, University of Sheffield, University of Kent and Camborne School of Mines.
Graphene is an extremely strong, lightweight and highly conductive material, exhibiting metallic-like properties in 2D form. Metalysis foresee the material having an impact in industries such as aerospace and automotive, among others.
“We are pleased to announce another exciting achievement on behalf of our technical team,” said Dr Dion Vaughan, Chief Executive Officer at Metalysis. “Our proven technology can synthesise graphene monolayers with no operational or production cost impacts on our core metal powder business.
“Producing graphene could enable Metalysis to add new, lucrative markets to those it is already serving: markets in which our arrival could be highly disruptive when global product demand is considered against the sheer amount of graphene we could produce in conjunction with our Gen 4, and later Gen 5 modular expansions. Gen 5, by way of illustration, envisages scaling up production capability for highly profitable niche multi-metal powders to thousands of tonnes per annum.”
While Graphene is traditionally known to incur high costs of production, Metalysis can produce the largely industrially inaccessible material at no additional production cost to its conventional operations. The company is now focused on further process optimisation.
Subject to further detailed due diligence and market outlook, Metalysis will look pursue commercial opportunities this year.
“We look forward to further optimising our process for graphene production, and exploring opportunities for commercial collaboration within the coming calendar year,” Vaughan added.
Graphene production at Metalysis represents a valuable opportunity to pursue additive revenue to the core titanium and tantalum metal powder production business, which primarily serves the 3D printing industry.
