The high electrical and thermal conductivity, and manufacturability of copper means it is widely used for electrical connections/casings, conducting channels and heat sinking of electronic systems used in demanding, failure-critical applications. Many of these, such as petrochemical processing, oil and gas, paper mills, effluent treatment plants and aerospace, create corrosive atmospheres rich in moisture, hydrogen sulphide and sulphur dioxide. Copper corrosion can lead to malfunction and overheating within 4 weeks in these industries and failure rates following introduction of RoSH directives have increased by up to 6 times. Graphene is chemically inert and theoretically impermeable, having the potential for atomically thin corrosion inhibiting coatings. 2-DTech aim to develop a novel manufacturing process for graphene, using dopants introduced during large area deposition to fortify domain boundaries, realising a step change in corrosion-resistant, conducting films. The project therefore seeks to prove the feasibility of an enabling technology for coating electronic and thermal management hardware used for failure-critical operations in corrosive environments.

A problem regularly faced when trying to incorporate graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) into systems such as thermoplastics and epoxy resins is achieving a good dispersion of the GNPs within the target medium without re-agglomeration occurring which leads to poor and inconsistent final materials performance in the graphene composite systems. This, along with a lack of reliable materials characterisation are key barrier to adaptation of these materials in markets such as motorsport and construction. Functionalisation of GNPs can help improve the dispersion within systems, however the processes used to impart the functional groups upon the GNPs can damage the basal plane of the materials, thus decreasing materials performance in areas such as mechanical reinforcement and electrical conductivity. Here 2-DTech (2DT) will work closely with the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) to produce a range of functionalised GNPs via wet chemical and plasma approaches with an aim of improving GNP dispersion within target polymer systems. The expertise and instrumentation available at NPL will be used to determine that the correct functional groups are present within the final functionalised materials and that the basal planes remain defect free via a suite of high-end instrumentation and measurement techniques. This will allow for the development of optimised functionalised GNPs which will be incorporated into polymer systems and be tested to show consistent final performance, thus elevating two of the key barriers to adoption for these materials.

The project will explore the development of a robust manufacturing route for graphene-using technologies in the UK, in order to translate the unique material properties of graphene to composite materials used in dental prostheses. This is motivated by the requirement for novel materials used in dental restorations, which are to be resistant to mechanical failure, exhibit high levels of biomimicry and bacteria-inhibiting. The project will optimise the synthesis of these materials as well as evaluate their compatibility for function in ther oral environment. A successsful project will develop technology critical to reducing the increasing level of global edentulism as well as being transferrable to a further range of applications in the wider medical and materials science fields.

Fuel cells have been promoted as a pollution free alternative for energy generation when converting hydrogen into electricity. There are several constraints which have limited the implementation of this technology and this proposal addresses all of the major problems. To make hydrogen requires energy and using conventional methods requires electricity to electrolyse water, if the electricity comes from fossil fuels then the problem is simply moved rather than solved. To use renewable energy requires electrolysers where the energy intermittently generated by the source (wind, solar, tidal etc) is converted into hydrogen at source by an on-site Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) Electrolyser. The problem with PEM electrolysers is that the membrane used needs to be thick to prevent hydrogen mixing with oxygen to form an explosive mixture but the thickness of the membrane reduces efficiency. Similar problems manifest themselves in fuel cells, the conversion of hydrogen back into electricity requires a PEM fuel cell, the membrane is the same as in the electrolyser and again needs to be thick to prevent fuel crossover but this again reduces efficiency. A third technology, the Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC) was developed to address the problems around hydrogen storage but again the membrane is the same and again thickness and fuel crossover constrain the efficacy of the membrane. In this work we intend to take the properties of the graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) which have been proven to allow protons to pass but prevent all other transport of materials and apply them to the three technologies discussed. The materials challenges around the manufacture of a defect free barrier membrane will be tackled with the added benefit of utilising the expensive platinum catalyst more efficiently. The potential benefit of this work is that hydrogen production will become more efficient and the cost of converting the fuel into electricity in a fuel cell will decrease as the overall cost of the fuel cell is reduced. This will make viable the use of 'green hydrogen' as an energy storage medium and enable the route to market for PEM fuel cells which are necessary to convert the hydrogen (and other fuels such as methanol) into electrical energy. Another potential benefit of this study is the complete replacement of the membrane material by a supported graphene or hBN. This will facilitate the reduction in volume of a fuel cell, as the fuel will no longer need to be humidified so there will be fewer components, which is important for mobile/portable applications.

The photovoltaic (PV) market is currently dominated by crystalline silicon solar cells (c-Si SC), with < 21 % power conversion efficiency (PCE), but widespread use of this technology is cost-limited. Alternatively, thin film solar cells (TFSC) can be manufactured cheaply but do not perform comparably and degrade more quickly than c-Si SC. Although recent advances in TFSC technology have been made using perovskite absorbing layers, a principle challenge in PV cell design is optimising charge collection and a significant breakthrough is required to achieve the theoretical maximum PCE. It has therefore been proposed that the unprecedented electronic and structural properties of graphene offer a unique opportunity for a step change improvement in TFSC efficiency and surface stability, through carefully engineered incorporation of graphene into TFSC. The project aims to prove the concept of graphene incorporation into thin film solid-state Dye Sensitised Solar Cells (ssDSC) based on perovskite, fully exploring the possible efficiency gains, as well as improvements to the surface properties of graphene encapsulated devices. The outcomes of a successful project can be developed to produce a step change in SC performance, providing higher PCE at lower cost than existing c-Si SC technologies, with reduced degradation.