Research funded by Archer Exploration with the University of Adelaide School of Chemical Engineering has identified more potential commercial applications using graphene. Archer’s research is focused on the development of scalable production of graphene from its South Australian graphite deposits and graphene’s broad industrial, environmental and agricultural applications. Good news for graphite producers.

The joint graphene research has generated excellent first outcomes. The A$200,000 research funding over two years helps support a graphene research team at the School of Chemical Engineering under Professor Dusan Losic. Key outcomes thus far have included:

1.  s Campoona and Sugarloaf graphite deposits have been characterised to determine mineral composition, graphitic carbon concentration and impurities as inputs into optimising processing conditions for the production of graphite concentrates and graphene based products. The results confirmed high concentrations of graphitic carbon critical for the production of high quality graphite
2. Campoona and Sugarloaf graphitic ores readily produce grapheme
3. Early research using Archer graphene has demonstrated excellent performance in new adsorbents for water purification, in the removal of spilled oils from water, for the removal of toxic metals from waste waters, in soil remediation and in agricultural applications. Further research will be directed at identifying potential commercial developments.

Archer’s sponsored graphene research was presented by the University team at the Nanotech USA 2014 Conference in Washington from the 15-18^th June 2014. The conference is one of world’s biggest Nanotechnology conferences. (http://www.techconnectworld.com/Nanotech2014/sym/Graphene.html).

The University team presented two papers from the graphene research showing a new and green approach for the reduction of graphene oxide nanosheets using non-aromatic amino acids which can be used for production of graphene and graphene oxide with controllable size and chemistry of nanosheets. The second paper outlined the development of Graphene composite hydrogels and aerogels for selective removal of oils and organic contaminants.