A company in Guizhou exploring the application of new carbon materials in a variety of industries opened a graphene production line in Guian New Area on Sept 18.

The production line will produce 50 tons of the remarkable material every year and will explore its application through a series of research and development projects.

“At present, the application of graphene in the industrial field is relatively wide, and many of its properties are difficult to compare with ordinary materials,” said Wang Gongkai, the technological director of Guizhou New Carbon Technology.

According to Wang, the majority of grapheme produced in China is in the form of powder, but specific applications of the material have different production requirements, resulting in high costs.

Wang hopes the new facility can streamline the production process of grapheme and provide tailor made solutions for a wide array of products.

First discovered in 2004, Graphene is a honeycomb-shaped layer of carbon atoms a million times thinner than a sheet of paper and is the strongest known material of its size. Graphene’s potential market is worth hundreds of billions of US dollars as the material is being applied as a semiconducting material in electronics.

Edited by Jacob Hooson