TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – While graphene has enjoyed global publicity over the last 18 months, it is still very much a market in its infancy, leaving some to question its relevance to the natural graphite mining industry; however, UK-based market research firm Industrial Minerals (IM) Data said on Wednesday that graphene had emerged as the new battlefront for the graphite industry’s juniors.

The firm said that the school of thought from long-established producers of graphite is that, at best, the material’s bearing on the natural graphite industry was being over-hyped. However, this pessimism had not dampened excitement among the graphite juniors pursuing graphene; instead, they see it as a rare opportunity to be part of a globally transformative industry.

Graphene is a form of carbon consisting of planar sheets that are one atom thick, with the atoms arranged in a honeycomb-shaped lattice.

This week saw the most recent announcement being that from junior Mason Graphite, which is to acquire 40% of NanoXplore, in what is the fourth deal to tie a flake graphite developer to a graphene one.

This adds to Focus Graphite’s deal with Grafoid in 2011 (the first of its kind in the graphite space), Northern Graphite’s 2012 supply and patent agreement with Grafen Chemical Industries, and Lomiko Metals’ partnership with Graphene Laboratories that was announced in early 2013.

IM Data manager Simon Moores said these companies were pursuing processing routes based on exfoliation – in essence stripping layers of graphene away from flakes of graphite. This technique is going head-to-head with the chemical exfoliation and chemical vapour deposition techniques, neither of which require natural graphite.

In terms of graphite volumes, graphene’s impact will almost certainly be minimal.

“The very principle behind the mechanical exfoliation process means little flake graphite is needed to produce graphene, a point which breeds cynicism among the established order who see greater potential in the battery sector due to its potential for explosive volume growth,” Moores said in an industry commentary.

Nevertheless, he added, shifting volumes of graphite into the graphene industry has never been the primary goal for this side of the industry. “Developing a value-added business model that is attractive to investors is the aim.”

The biggest impact on the graphite industry was likely to come from the investment in processing innovation, which would be needed if the sector were to create a marketable graphene product.

For many years now, the graphite industry has lacked the technological processing infrastructure to develop new value-added products in an economical way. To take graphene theory from laboratory to market reality is the biggest challenge facing the industry today, the firm said.

GRAPHENE SEPARATE FROM GRAPHITE

Cultivating a completely new line of end-markets is something that the industry has not had to do in modern times. It requires a creative and optimistic outlook, a belief that customers would want to use graphene, and the willingness to lead and take that risk.

“The direction the industry takes hinges upon identifying a commercially viable end product that will be adopted by the market. While graphene in theory has endless applications, the reality is that finding users willing to take the risk of adopting an entirely new material is a difficult task,” Moores said.

That being said, he added that it was unlikely that the majority of graphite miners or processors would ever want to enter the graphene race. Many would feel it is too big a departure from their core industrial businesses of refractories, foundries, lubricants and, to some extent, batteries. It would also take significant research and development investment to compete with the public and private companies that are already established, many of which were leading university spin-offs.

“Therefore expect to see the rise of a new style of company, a carbon nanotech company that may use small volumes of flake graphite but won’t share strong ties with the mining industry. As a result, also expect the focus of natural graphite producers to be fixed on refractories and batteries, while graphene’s pioneers attempt to create a new industrial paradigm.

“On the flipside, do not underestimate the fear of missing out. This could force one or two of the biggest graphite companies into action. Watch this space,” Moores commented.