Real Graphene: But is it? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: allquixotic
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: February 25, 2020, 10:39:44 pm
content: I learned about a startup called Real Graphene from a ColdFusion video on Youtube. Here's the company's website:https://www.realgrapheneusa.com/grapheneHere's the video I watched about it:A friend of mine thought this was dodgy specifically because:The charge/discharge rates claimed are achievable using off-the-shelf lithium-ion batteries today. It may require more cells in parallel (series? sorry -- I'm not an EE major) than your typical battery bank, or running them harder than most battery banks are willing to do for the sake of improved bank lifespan. So a 20 Ah bank that can provide 100 W output over USB-C isn't all that impressive according to him. Likewise, charging at 60 W (or whatever they claim on the Real Graphene website; it differs depending on the size of the battery bank) is achievable using current technology.The battery banks seem like they're a bit physically larger than your typical Anker bank, so that could account for how they might be packing in more batteries or otherwise using existing technology (without Graphene!) to enable faster charging and discharging. I haven't done any precise measurement comparisons though.No one has independently verified the banks' longevity, so the claim that the Real Graphene banks have much better longevity than tradition lithium-ion batteries will take an independent party significant time to actually test and verify this.It seems odd that they would start with battery banks as their first product. My friend argued that if this is a genuine technology advance, they should sell battery cells so they can be used in any application, not just for charging mobile devices. For example, if they sold 18650 cells, you could slam a bunch of them together and make a higher-discharge, higher-longevity battery pack for an EV or plugin hybrid car. You'd have to buy hundreds of chargers (and all that packaging and plastic you don't need) and disassemble it all and extract the batteries if you wanted to do that today -- assuming their graphene tech is genuine.I thought it would be interesting to get the thoughts of the knowledgeable people here on this Real Graphene company and what they're doing. How can we be sure that their claims are accurate? How do we know they're not using a non-graphene technology and marketing it as graphene?Anyway, it may take some actual research with someone who has the product in-hand to figure all this out, but if you guys can tell anything just from the specs on the site and say "that's obviously not anything new" -- that would be cool. Thanks!

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2020, 11:15:53 pm
content: It does make some sense to sell a power bank initially, as the mark up can be higher than raw cells, and you have control over charging currents, temperature, etc.Note how they describe it:QuoteThat almost implies there is a layer of graphene on the outside of the battery.However, graphene composite seems to be an accepted term for actual graphene cells, so maybe that is just poorly worded:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378775310017131

author: Haenk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 29, 2020, 01:40:33 pm
content: They claim to add Graphene (not Graphite) to the electrolytic solution. Does that help with heating up during charge/discharge? Who knows.Probably something for a nice teardown video.