R. Gulla, R. Wendelbo
Abalonyx AS,
Norway
Keywords: graphene oxide, reduced graphene oxide, corrosion protection
Summary:
Graphene oxide (GO) has the tremendous advantage of being a material easy to modify to become compatible with a wide range of requirements. As producers of GO and GO-derivatives in kg-quantities and with customers on all five continents we have in recent years gained valuable insight in up-coming real industrial applications world-wide. As a pure compound, GO is a highly oxidized solid acid easily dispersible in polar solvents as single layers with a thickness of 1nm. It can be reduced to become more or less graphene-like rGO, and both GO and rGO can be de-acified, functionalized, and N-doped to obtain new properties. Corrosion protection is the first application now being industrialized, promising reduced corrosion to steel products like automobiles, heat exchangers, pipelines etc. Other promising developments are seen in water treatment, composites and sports equipment. Abalonyx, as a specialized graphene oxide producer, is continuously monitoring upcoming applications with an ambition to provide optimized GO-products to any industrial application. From the industrial end-user perspective, costs, reliable availability and hazards are the most important concerns apart from relevant chemistry. Industrial production costs are strongly related to production volumes. Availability is related to proven production capacity, preferably by more than one producer with proven consistency regarding quality. Possible hazards related to GO and GO-derivates are not yet completely known, but are generally believed to be very minor. Such possible hazards are subject of several recent and ongoing studies.