Nobel Prize may lift fortunes of local graphene producer

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DAYTON — When this year’s Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to researchers examining a material called “graphene,” the announcement didn’t necessarily turn heads in Dayton.

Maybe it should have. After all, the world’s largest producer of graphene is right here, at Angstron Materials on McCook Avenue.

Graphene is incredibly strong and a little goes a very long way — a gram covers a football field. The Nobel researchers concentrated on the fact that graphene electrons move 100 times faster than in silicon, the material today used in computer chips. In addition, the material conducts thermal properties well and is easy to see through.

The Nobel, which last week went to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, professors from the United Kingdom, “is worth about $10 million in free advertising,” quipped Ron Beech, Angstron sales director.

While he certainly does not claim to be first, Bor Jang, chief executive of Angstron and a Wright State University professor, acknowledges that he has studied graphene — what it can do and how to make a lot of it — for a decade.

“It validates the significance of the graphene industry that is emerging,” Jang said of the Nobel.

Jang has not focused on graphene’s potential for the next generation of super-computers, however. He believes more immediate applications include supercapacitors, fuel cells, batteries, composite materials and more.

Graphene, Jang said, “has very unique properties indeed, to say the least.”

In particular, leaders of Angstron and its sister company, Nanotek Instruments, see their tiny nano-graphene platelets material as particularly promising for hybrid electric vehicle battery anodes. The company has small prototype battery and supercapacitor production lines running.

For now, Jang is hoping that recognition in Stockholm will lead to further recognition in Columbus and elsewhere. He estimates that Angstrom needs about $1 million to $3 million for its next steps in mass-producing graphene. Last year, the company received a $1.4 million federal grant.