High Shear Mixers in Graphene Based Products and Applications

In the latest video from Silverson Machines see how Silverson High Shear mixers are helping those at GEIC (Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre) with the commercialisation of graphene products.

In the infancy of graphene research, Silverson mixers were used in one of the successful techniques used to extract graphene from graphite, through shear exfoliation. This process used the high shear of a rotor stator mixer to exfoliate defect-free, few-layer graphene from graphite in solvent systems or certain surfactants. 

Now that research has moved on, the high shear energy of Silverson mixers is still proving essential for graphene formulations at a laboratory scale. The high shear energy ensures that the graphene is dispersed well throughout an entire mix so the desired end properties are achieved.

GEIC have tested these formulations under microscopy and seen that the level of dispersion achieved with a Silverson Laboratory mixer, far outperforms conventional lab stirrers.

Not only can the Silverson disperse the graphene effectively, it will also disperse any pigments, dispersants or resins in the formulation as well, completing the whole process.

One of GEICs main focuses is bridging the gap between what has been done in the laboratory and scaling up to pilot production, which is what industry needs in order to commercialise graphene products. 

To this end, the team at GEIC has recently purchased a production scale Silverson Batch Mixer. This has completely changed how they work on collaborative projects with their partner companies from different industries and how they can provide large scale samples for them. Since using the Batch mixer, GEIC's production times have been reduced from several days to a few hours.

To find out more, read our application report and watch the video on the Silverson website: www.silverson.co.uk