Hi
@windlove you make some salient points, indeed TLG have a CTO that authored a paper that TLG used to fluff up some ASX release.
Must have missed the release with their predictions of potential pricing of micrographite.
I notice however you ignored my question about the capex requirements, I should ask about the OPEX also, and the resulting throughput that is achieved, how do these compare to that achievable if you use a better starting material?
Instead you seized desperately on to a small line in an FGR ann and then questioned how much it would cost. I dunno? what do you reckon would be involved in screening, washing and drying? is it some sort of fancy and mystical procedure with circuits and stages? I think not, the capex needed for this will not push the price up to anything near the cost of 1/6th of the cost of TLG's stage 2 plant - you know with multiple cells and circuits and stages of processing
The VFD I thought would be an option other than sonication to achieve single layer rather than 3 to 10 layer graphene, the problem with getting down to single and very few layers is the effect this has on the size of the platelets, case in point TLG's grpahene produced in stage 2 is less than a micron in size. They used the VFD a few years back to partially uncook an egg, it's what they recieved the 'ig-nobel prize' for. Colin Raston who headed that group and developed the VFD was named in 2011 as one of eleven "living luminaries" by the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. Obviously it remains to be seen if this device will be at all beneficial for graphene production, but probably has as much or better chance as the chances of there being a benefit to using TLG's micrographite to produce graphene oxide via Hummers' method VS producing graphene oxide via oxidation of electrochemically exfoliated high purity ore.
