Graphene foam has broad application prospects and the industry has huge development potential

​ ​ Graphene foam, also known as three-dimensional graphene foam, refers to a three-dimensional porous material that uses a single layer of graphene with a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice structure as the base material and is articulated with disordered stacking as the main construction method. Graphene foam has the advantages of low temperature resistance, good conductivity, large specific surface area, strong pressure resistance, and good mechanical properties. It has broad application prospects in aerospace, lithium-ion batteries, military industry, micro-nano processing, biomedicine and other fields.

According to the “2022-2027 China Graphene Foam Industry Market In-depth Research and Development Prospects Forecast Report released by the Industrial Research Center, Graphene foam is a subdivided product of graphene. Benefiting from the gradual development and maturity of production technology, the scale of my country’s graphene market continues to expand. In 2021, my country’s graphene market will reach 26.85 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.8%. With the rapid development of the graphene industry, graphene foam, as a high-performance graphene material, has continued to expand the industry’s development space. However, at present, my country’s graphene foam industry is in its infancy, with many companies and scientific research institutions focusing on patent layout, and a complete industrial chain has not yet been formed.

The main preparation methods of graphene foam include template method, hydrothermal method, etc. The template method refers to coating graphene on template materials such as polyurethane foam or metal nickel, and using pyrolysis or etching to eliminate the template to finally obtain graphene foam; the hydrothermal method requires ultrasonic peeling, hydrothermal self-assembly, After drying, annealing and other processes, graphene foam is finally produced. At present, graphene foam preparation methods have problems such as difficult removal of templates, difficulty in drying, complex operating procedures, and long preparation cycles, making it difficult to achieve large-scale production.

​​ Graphene foam has good application prospects in high-tech fields such as lithium-ion batteries, aerospace, and biomedicine. Graphene foam has excellent thermal and electrical conductivity, which can control the operating temperature of lithium-ion batteries and extend their service life. In recent years, as the prosperity of the new energy automobile industry continues to increase, the market demand for lithium-ion batteries has become increasingly strong. In 2021, my country’s lithium-ion battery market will reach 354.6GWh, accounting for nearly 60% of the global market. In this context, graphene foam will gain broad development space due to its excellent properties.

The world’s leading graphene foam companies are mainly concentrated in developed overseas countries. American Elements, MTI, and G6 Materials are the major global graphene foam manufacturers. my country’s graphene foam industry has low concentration and few production companies, mainly including Qiyue Biotech, Dongxu Optoelectronics, etc.

Industry analysts said that graphene foam, as a high-performance graphene material, has broad application prospects in many high-tech fields. Production technology is gradually developing and maturing, and the future development trend of the industry will continue to improve. my country’s graphene foam industry started late. Affected by high technical barriers and other factors, large-scale production has not yet been achieved, and the industry still has huge development potential.