EIT InnoEnergy backed start-up Graphmatech enables full-scale implementation of Graphene

Graphmatech, a spin off from Uppsala University, Sweden, announces a major breakthrough that enables to use graphene’s full properties in real-life applications. 

Graphene is a two-dimensional carbon material that is only one atom thick and it is the strongest and thinnest material ever known. It is also extremely conductive for heat and electricity as well as ultra-light and transparent. It was first isolated in 2004 and was rewarded with the Nobel prize in 2010. Graphene is predicted to revolutionise the energy sector and electronics and we could even build lightweight aircraft of graphene composites in the future.

But until now there has been one major challenge with graphene. More than 10 years after the first isolation of graphene we can still use it in very limited applications. Graphene’s properties dramatically degrades under upscaling. Researchers all over the world have been struggling with this challenge and recently a breakthrough was made at the Ångström Laboratory, Uppsala University in Sweden, when Dr. Mamoun Taher, material scientist and CEO at Graphmatech, managed to design and manufacture a graphene hybrid material.

'The major challenge of working with graphene was the agglomeration under scale-up. We had fantastic properties at the nano-scale and less encouraging properties at macro-scale. The challenges have driven me to intensively think about solutions to bring such a wonder-material to industrial products while keeping its amazing properties' ,said Dr Mamoun Taher.

Dr Taher is a material scientist of Syrian origin, who came to Sweden in 2010 for his master's and PhD studies. Since 2015, he has been doing research at the Ångström Laboratory at Uppsala University and has also been working on graphene related projects with ABB. He recently formed the company Graphmatech AB with the aim to commercialise Aros Graphene® and other functional materials developed by the research team behind Aros Graphene®.

Aros Graphene® is a hybrid ionic graphene material that is easy and eco-friendly to manufacture and can be applied as an additive into a matrix, a coating or even by 3D printing.

“With Aros Graphene® we can finally realise the full potential of graphene and we have already shown that in preliminary tests with potential customers. The first commercial applications will be available in 2019”, says  Dr. Mamoun Taher.

He adds: “The most remarkable discovery was, however, not that we had produced a new material but the striking properties we found that this novel material possessed. It turns out that Aros Graphene® has the electrical and thermal properties of graphene not only in two dimensions but in 3D, and furthermore the surface has extremely low friction and high wear resistance.”

'[tweetable]This novel material is expected to pave the way for new sustainable products in a number of industrial applications'[/tweetable], said Björn Lindh, co-founder of Graphmatech.

Graphmatech joined InnoEnergy Highway® programme in June 2017. The team is now working on proving Aros Graphene® in different customer applications.

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