Mining’s old guard needs strong medicine
A new report details subpar investor returns in the mining industry over the last decade, particularly big cap diversified companies which have not adapted to new realities.
Zen Graphene Solutions (TSXV: ZEN) and its research partner, Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt, reported having received encouraging results from their battery development program taking place at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus.
In a press release, Zen and DLR explained that the team at UBC-O has created a graphene aerogel composite anode material using a proprietary aerogel formulation containing doping with either Zen’s reduced graphene oxide (rGO) or graphene.
Graphene is a high-quality form of graphite that ‘evolves’ into a material made of a single layer of carbon atoms. It is super-strong, ultra-thin and crystalline
“Preliminary results indicate that relatively low loadings (<5 wt.%) of graphene-based material, combined with this proprietary aerogel structure, can result in an anode with a significant specific discharge capacity,” the companies said in the media brief. “Preliminary best results were achieved with a 2 wt.% loading of graphene dispersed in aerogel and resulted in an initial specific discharge capacity of 2800 mAh/g and a discharge capacity of 1300 mAh/g after 50 cycles at a current capacity of 186 mA/g.”
According to Zen, these unoptimized results are believed to be better than those currently reported in the literature for graphene aerogel batteries.
The companies involved in the project are convinced that graphene-containing aerogels could have the potential to be a low-cost, low-weight, high-performance composite materials for near-future energy storage applications.
