Xiao Ping, a professor of materials science at the NGI, shows a graphene composite. (Photo by ANGUS McNEICE/China Daily)
The project he is working on is looking to accelerate the use of graphene in the aviation industry.
"Right now, we are focused on fundamental research," said Xiao. "And we have found that graphene can be used as an additive to increase the performance of several other materials."
Xiao's research has shown that graphene can prevent the growth of cracks in ceramics, which are used in internal combustion engines.
Bridging the valley
Baker said that for graphenebased products to move from concept to commercialization, they must overcome the "valley of death" problem.
Governments and universities will back initial research, and the private sector will invest in a product that can be replicated at scale. But there is a gap between those two development phases in which innovation is starved of funding.
To bridge this gap, the University of Manchester and the UK government have invested 60 million pounds ($78 million) into the Graphene Engineering and Innovation Center, otherwise known as GEIC (pronounced "geek"). The cavernous facility will switch on its machines later this year. It will allow companies to use the equipment to replicate prototypes by the dozen, proving to investors that inventions are scalable.
"Companies from China and elsewhere can come here with an idea for a product and develop it," said Baker. "It's a make-or-break space for some of the ideas we've come up with around graphene. If we do that successfully, we will increase the pace of graphene products into the commercial sphere."
And those Chinese companies have the support of a government that has doubled down on advanced materials.
China leads the way
China has emerged as a key territory for graphene production. In China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) that started in 2016, new materials development is listed among the leading sectors of the national economy.
Around 3,000 Chinese companies are exploring uses for graphene, according to government statistics, while half of the world's graphene-related patents have been filed in China.
China now has close to 75 percent of the nominal global production capacity for graphene, according to IDTechEx, and the price of graphene has fallen from several thousand dollars a gram to around $75 a kilogram during the last decade. Production capacity is expanding, as foreign companies follow demand and establish operations in China.
UK-based advanced materials engineering company Versarien is currently building a graphene factory in Jinan, Shandong province.
"It's a brand-new science, and China is trying to take the lead, and is willing to invest heavily to create that lead," said Neill Ricketts, chief executive at Versarien.
Ghaffarzadeh predicts that, during the next five to 10 years, graphene will mostly be restricted to the additive market.
"But that is not to say that there won't eventually be those truly groundbreaking results down the line," he said. "Graphene really does have fantastic properties and its potential is huge."
