Uppsala University has unveiled a Sweden-based materials manufacturing spinout, Graphmatech, that will aim to commercialise technology for producing graphene at scale.
Graphene is a 2D carbon material, first isolated in 2004. The material’s strength, transparency and energy conduciveness have potentially far-reaching implications for the energy and electronics sectors.
Graphmatech claims its variant of the material, Aros Graphene, will be the first to retain these advantages when produced at scale and when rendered in 3D, potentially enabling manufacturing via 3D printer.
Aros Graphene has completed preliminary testing with potential customers. Its first commercial form will become available in 2019.
The material is based on research by Mamoun Taher, an inorganic chemistry researcher at the Ångström Laboratory in Uppsala’s Department of Chemistry.
Taher co-founded Graphmatech in 2017 with Uppsala alumnus Björn Lindh, who previously helped start another Uppsala materials spinout, Disruptive Materials, which won the GUV Award for Technology of the Year in 2014.
Graphmatech joined industrial group ABB’s Synnerleap incubator last month, after receiving funding from EU-backed research program and incubator InnoEnergy in June 2017.
The spinout had secured initial funding of undisclosed size from Swedish government-backed research agency Vinnova in the same year.
Mamoun Taher said: “A major challenge of working with graphene was the agglomeration [deterioration] under upscaling. 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.”
