133550GRADIS - Graphene Dispersions in elastomersClosedFeasibility StudiesInnovate UKThe inclusion of engineered nanoparticles has been shown to dramatically improve the performance of many materials and there is growing commercial interest in their widespread use across most industries. For example, carbon nanotubes and graphene are proving to have an enormous impact on properties such as tensile strength and electrical and thermal conductivity when added to polymers. There are also numerous examples in the field of inorganic particles, such as nano titanium dioxide being used in transparent UV-resistant coatings. Much of the excitement, interest and investment to date has been focused on the creation of high quality, uniform particles of various kinds. This is particularly true for graphene, where sheets of carbon, (ideally) one molecule thick, are formed. However, to be used in real applications, these usually need to be mixed into a fluid medium, at large industrial scales and meeting strict economic targets. Unfortunately, many of the current approaches to the manufacture and production of graphene do not meet these needs, particularly when applied to elastomeric polymers. Effective dispersion and stabilisation of nano particles in fluids and elastomers usually require a combination of chemistry and the highly controlled application of mechanical energy. In the laboratory, for fluids, high shear mixers, ultrasonic mixers and media mills are currently the state-of-the-art for mechanical mixing, but they are difficult to scale up and are limited to low viscosities. For high viscosity materials and elastomers, internal mixers and two or three roll mills are typically used, both at laboratory and production scales. TecExec Limited is a British company that has developed a range of innovative mixing technologies over the last 20 years. It has concentrated on high energy mixers that are used by companies all over the world in process intensification applications at industrial scales. The TecExec Group has recently developed a rotor-stator technology for continuous mixing that it believes could be used for nano particle dispersion in elastomers. This project intends to test this hypothesis using graphene like materials for industrial-scale applications and thereby open the market to large-scale exploitation.