Graphene can be used to make high-density lithium-sulfur car batteries

Researchers from Stanford developed a new cathode material for rechargeable lithium-sulfur batteries - by wrapping sulfur particles in graphene sheets. This new cathode enables batteries with a significantly higher energy density than is currently possible. Such batteries can be used to power electric cars.

Current electric-car batteries 'weak spot' is the cathode materials that have low capacity (about 150 mAh/g for layer oxides and 170 mAh/g for LiFe-PO4). A sulfur cathode has a theoretical specific capacity of 1672 mAh/g - but sulfur is a poor conductor, it expands during discharge, and the polysulfides dissolve in electrolyte. Using graphene to wrap the sulfur may overcome many of these issues.

Read the full story Posted: Jul 14,2011

Graphene can be used to make better and cheaper large-area OLEDs

Researchers at Stanford University have successfully developed a brand new concept of OLEDs with a few nanometer of graphene as transparent conductor. This paved the way for inexpensive mass production of OLEDs on large-area low-cost flexible plastic substrate, which could be rolled up like wallpaper and virtually applied to anywhere you want. The researchers say that Graphene has the potential to be transparent, high-performance, highly conductive and cheaper by several orders of magnitude than current ITO based solutions.

Graphene OLED photoGraphene OLED
Traditionally, indium tin oxide (ITO) is used in OLEDs, but indium is rare, expensive and difficult to recycle. Scientists have been actively searching for an alternative candidate.

Read the full story Posted: Mar 09,2010