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Meet the first lady of graphene, turning harmful gases into the wonder stuff
Catharina Paukner is building a supersized graphene factory in Cambridge that can turn methane from landfill - or even cows - into modern-day black gold
The Telegraph
Rebecca Burn Callander
12/6/2014
Excerpt:
The birthplace of graphene – the one-atom-thick carbon – is Manchester University, where it was created by two physicists. But Cambridge could become the adopted home of the so-called wonder-material.
A vast new facility that can make up to five tonnes of the ultra-valuable black dust each year is being built in the city and is due to open in 2015.
Cambridge Nanosystems, a university spin-out, led by chief scientist Catharina Paukner, 30, has built the factory with the help of a £500,000 grant from the Technology Strategy Board.
“It’s mind-blowing to think that not long ago, it was only possible to make a ladleful in a year. Now we can make enough to fill a whole building,” she tells The Sunday Telegraph. “And we have the capacity to increase that 100-fold.”
Graphene is one of the most interesting inventions of modern times. Stronger than steel, yet light, the material conducts electricity and heat. It has been used for a wide variety of applications, from strengthening Novak Djokovic’s tennis racket to building semiconductors.
Paukner’s two-year-old company is leading the charge to commercialise graphene. She and fellow Cambridge alumni Krzysztof Koziol have devised a way to make the material in large volumes, without compromising on quality.
Unlike existing graphene manufacturers that use graphite as their source material, or use a thermal process to bake it out of methane, Cambridge Nanosystems uses a patented plasma system to turn biogas into graphene.
This gas can either come out of the pipeline – the same natural gas that is pumped into our houses – or using waste gas.
“In America, they are starting to capture methane from cows and using it to burn for heating,” says Paukner. “But we could go one better, and convert all those methane hydrocarbons into a high-value product.”
Graphene, in its raw state, is a fine black powder
If the idea of strapping giant gas canisters to cows seems a little far-fetched, Cambridge Nanosystems has found a more immediate source of methane.
“Landfill sites produce a lot of methane, which is a greenhouse gas,” she explains. “You can’t just let it into the atmosphere, so companies spend a lot of money flaring it off. This produces carbon dioxide, which is also bad for the planet. If we take that gas, we can make graphene, with water being the only waste product.”
Cambridge Nanosystems is running a project at a biogas plant to prove it can create graphene using this process reliably and consistently.
Cambridge Nanosystems was spun out to build equipment for the creation of graphene, but Paukner and her co-founders soon realised that graphene itself had the greatest potential.
“The possibilities are endless,” says Paukner. “I’m passionate about applications for the building industry. Imagine radiators that you can spray on any surface. We can create a kind of black ink using graphene that can be painted on to a wall or a floor.”
By attaching an electrical current to the painted area, conductive graphene heats immediately, warming the room. Plumbers would not have to install radiators, just a paintbrush, she explains.
...................................
View the complete article, including photos, at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...der-stuff.html
Catharina Paukner is building a supersized graphene factory in Cambridge that can turn methane from landfill - or even cows - into modern-day black gold
The Telegraph
Rebecca Burn Callander
12/6/2014
Excerpt:
The birthplace of graphene – the one-atom-thick carbon – is Manchester University, where it was created by two physicists. But Cambridge could become the adopted home of the so-called wonder-material.
A vast new facility that can make up to five tonnes of the ultra-valuable black dust each year is being built in the city and is due to open in 2015.
Cambridge Nanosystems, a university spin-out, led by chief scientist Catharina Paukner, 30, has built the factory with the help of a £500,000 grant from the Technology Strategy Board.
“It’s mind-blowing to think that not long ago, it was only possible to make a ladleful in a year. Now we can make enough to fill a whole building,” she tells The Sunday Telegraph. “And we have the capacity to increase that 100-fold.”
Graphene is one of the most interesting inventions of modern times. Stronger than steel, yet light, the material conducts electricity and heat. It has been used for a wide variety of applications, from strengthening Novak Djokovic’s tennis racket to building semiconductors.
Paukner’s two-year-old company is leading the charge to commercialise graphene. She and fellow Cambridge alumni Krzysztof Koziol have devised a way to make the material in large volumes, without compromising on quality.
Unlike existing graphene manufacturers that use graphite as their source material, or use a thermal process to bake it out of methane, Cambridge Nanosystems uses a patented plasma system to turn biogas into graphene.
This gas can either come out of the pipeline – the same natural gas that is pumped into our houses – or using waste gas.
“In America, they are starting to capture methane from cows and using it to burn for heating,” says Paukner. “But we could go one better, and convert all those methane hydrocarbons into a high-value product.”
Graphene, in its raw state, is a fine black powder
If the idea of strapping giant gas canisters to cows seems a little far-fetched, Cambridge Nanosystems has found a more immediate source of methane.
“Landfill sites produce a lot of methane, which is a greenhouse gas,” she explains. “You can’t just let it into the atmosphere, so companies spend a lot of money flaring it off. This produces carbon dioxide, which is also bad for the planet. If we take that gas, we can make graphene, with water being the only waste product.”
Cambridge Nanosystems is running a project at a biogas plant to prove it can create graphene using this process reliably and consistently.
Cambridge Nanosystems was spun out to build equipment for the creation of graphene, but Paukner and her co-founders soon realised that graphene itself had the greatest potential.
“The possibilities are endless,” says Paukner. “I’m passionate about applications for the building industry. Imagine radiators that you can spray on any surface. We can create a kind of black ink using graphene that can be painted on to a wall or a floor.”
By attaching an electrical current to the painted area, conductive graphene heats immediately, warming the room. Plumbers would not have to install radiators, just a paintbrush, she explains.
...................................
View the complete article, including photos, at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...der-stuff.html
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