03 October 2021

Graphene: The Wonder Material. . . Whatever Happened to Urbix After The Re-Location Back To Falcon Field

Your MesaZona blogger was wondering - obviously to himself - whatever happened to all the helluva hullabaloo about the prospects over Graphene here in Mesa that first was featured on the blog site back in 2017 and 2018? Let's attempt to update that later with references taken the archives using this site's Searchbox, noting  this element's history:
> Graphene was first isolated in 2004 by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, two University of Manchester academics who used Scotch tape to peel off layers of carbon a single atom thick – making the world’s first “two-dimensional” material. The carbon atoms’ strong hexagonal arrangement leaves electrons free to move easily across the layers, carrying electrical charge or heat very effectively.
> Geim and Novoselov won the 2010 Nobel prize in physics for their efforts.
> Potential uses cited by researchers range from condoms to concrete and electronics to aeroplanes.
The UK was early in sensing an opportunity, with government investment in graphene that has launched clusters of companies focused on the material, particularly around Manchester.
> Other countries cottoned on.
   In 2014, the European Union launched a 10-year, billion-euro research project, and it is also looking at defence applications.
   However, by 2017 China had more graphene companies than any other country, outstripping the US, according to research by Fullerex, a consultancy.
 
> Graphene is now relatively widely available, but quality and cost varies considerably between producers. They generally either grow graphene crystals from the bottom up, or strip away layers of pencil-lead graphite. Yet both methods have disadvantages, and producers are yet to crack the challenge of using graphene at an industrial level.
--- Reference:

How ‘wonder material’ graphene became a national security concern

UK and China are racing to develop forms of the super-strength technology that has potential aerospace and weaponry uses

By Jasper Jolly

@jjpjolly

Last modified on Tue 28 Sep 2021 06.08 EDT

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OK HERE ARE A SERIES OF INSERTS FROM EARLIER POSTS ON THIS BLOG
 
May 17 2017 A New Era For Transnational Arizona-Mexico Tech Development
 
Chairman of Mesa-based Urbix, Nico Cuevas Ushers in a New Graphene Era
 by Maciej Heyman
Phoenix, Arizona – May 15, 2017 – At a TEDx event in Hermosillo, Mexico early in May, Phoenix-based Urbix Resources co-founder and chairman, Nico Cuevas, heralded in the Graphene Age.
“We are entering a new era,” Cuevas told a full and enthusiastic audience at the Auditorio del COBACH. What is coming, Cuevas says, is a “wave of innovation that will allow a social and economic development only comparable to the Industrial Revolution.”
As Cuevas points out, graphene makes possible the next level of technological development, including conductive inks for the production of ultra thin and ultralight circuitry, radically thin mobile phones, super-light bulletproof vests, water purification membranes, light and highly efficient batteries and other innovations.
The challenge, Cuevas stresses, is that, while the demand for this super-material is growing at a phenomenal rate as ever more high tech uses are found, at present, “the graphene market has a huge bottleneck: industrial scale production.”
By popular estimate, in 2016, only a few hundred kilograms of graphene were produced world-wide. And much of that, Cuevas maintains, was not even pristine graphene, but a different substance called graphene oxide.
“In reality,” says Cuevas, “it is very difficult to compare graphene oxide directly with graphene due to the fact that the production processes and applications can be very different.”

That said, Cuevas is clear on what is better. “Imagine you go to the most prestigious vineyard in the world and order a bottle of their best vintage. You buy the bottle, take it home, open it, and then realize that what they sold to you was a purple juice with mashed grapes, something that is not wine yet. That in my opinion is graphene oxide.”
Blogger Note:
A rash of recent market estimates towards the end of last year put the international market for a graphene in the range of a few hundred million dollars.
Urbix Resources, the company Cuevas co-founded in 2014, currently “has the monthly capacity to produce eight kilograms of pristine graphene” in the company’s state-of-the-art lab in Mesa, Arizona.
According to international graphene production estimates, Cuevas says, that could be half of what was produced worldwide last year. More, says Cuevas, their methods are green and the company uses “a graphite purification method that doesn’t use hydrofluoric acid, a graphene exfoliation with poly-ionic liquids that are 95-percent recyclable, and has an efficiency of 97-percent.” And that production capability is growing.

In addition to the Mesa-based lab, Urbix has a milling facility in Hermosillo, Mexico where the company is mining the source material for what Cuevas feels are some of the highest grade graphite products currently available.
The company recently completed their second round of financing and is moving into position to take their place as one of the top graphene-producing organizations in the world.

Visit: www.UrbixResources.com
Media Contact
Company Name: Urbix Resources
Contact Person: Adam Small
Email: asmall@grupourbix.com
Phone: (480) 269-4662
Country: United States
Website:
www.UrbixResources.com
Contact Us
245 W. 2nd Street Mesa, AZ 85201
Phone: (480) 269 - 4662
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August 22 2018
Flash-Back > Fast-Forward: Here In Mesa Urbix Taking Top Position In World Graphene Production
Now here's a Lo-Fi downtown Mesa success story if ever there was one: the transformation of an under-used existing 53,000 sq.ft building that didn't deliver the results when city officials wanted to make Mesa "a college town" by locating Wilkes University and the so-called Center for Higher Education in the former Police Building on 2nd Street.
What is working well now at LaunchPoint is a company named Urbix, as noted on this blog site last year in a post an excerpt is inserted here.
There's an update today about advanced testing programs and more investments
Urbix Resources, LLC is an advanced natural graphite processor with expertise ranging across low-cost environmentally friendly graphite purification, nuclear graphite, graphene, and other advanced carbon derivatives. Urbix is also an expert in li-ion battery cell design and boasts next generation high voltage electrolyte and fast charging electrode nanoarchitecture.

Mining News - Published on Wed, 22 Aug 2018

Image Source: southstarmining.com
South Star Mining Corp. announced that it has entered into an agreement with Urbix Resources, LLC for advanced testing, optimization development and commercialization of its Santa Cruz project graphite concentrates. The Company would also like to announce that it has been listed for trading on the OTCQB(R) Market exchange in the United States under the symbol "STSBF". South Star has also applied for Depository Trust Company ("DTC") eligibility.
The testing program will include detailed characterization, purification, expandability and market suitability on four different flake-size concentrates previously produced during the Company's pilot plant program. The evaluation will take place at Urbix's cutting edge R&D facility in Mesa, Arizona and incorporate its advanced purification and exfoliation technologies. The program will begin within 30 days and require approximately twelve weeks to complete. Upon completion of this round of test work, the companies have agreed to work toward formalizing potential commercial relationships including offtakes, processing, technology sharing and product distribution. Total estimated value of the test program is approximately C$400,000 which will be partially paid in cash and grants with the balance payable to Urbix as 384,000 shares in the Company valued at C$0.45 per share. The share issuance is subject to TSX approval and a four month hold period.
Company CEO Mr Eric Allison stated "We are very excited about moving forward on one of our key strategic objectives in association with a leading graphite technology company like Urbix. The information provided will greatly assist South Star in its marketing efforts as well as in the ultimate design of our processing facilities in Brazil. We are firm believers in the future of graphite, not only in its traditional markets, but in many new advanced applications and Urbix is at the forefront of this technological development."
 
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11 October 2018
Urbix Here In Mesa: An Industry Breakthrough > The First Economically Viable Graphene-Enhanced Concrete
INVENTION
Arizona company creates economically viable graphene concrete
An achievement that represents an industry breakthrough.

 
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22 October 2018
Amazing 3D-Printed Graphene Supercapacitor Electrode
Kinda nerdy > exciting
Published on Oct 21, 2018
****EDIT: meant to say Graphene is made out of Carbon, not Silicon.
Hello. Welcome to NeoScribe
.
We’ve all seen the headlines.
Graphene Batteries that charge five times faster!
Solid-State Batteries with 10 times the capacity!
There’re so many news stories about energy storage research these days that after a while you’re like, bring it to market already!
Because we get so excited from these headlines that we want them in our devices now!
The great Joe Scott said it best when he said… ///Joe Scott Vid///
And while these promising breakthroughs may not lead to actual products as fast as we would like, eventually one or many WILL get there. Right?
So, while we wait, let’s talk about yet ANOTHER breakthrough in energy storage research, the record-breaking 3D Printed Graphene Supercapacitor from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory!
I get a kick out of that description, it’s like all of the Nerd Buzzwords packed together, 3D Printed Graphene Supercapacitor.

Anyway, before we talk about that let’s BRIEFLY talk about what supercapacitors are.
A Supercapacitor or Supercap is an energy storage device similar to batteries. While batteries release electrical energy from chemical reactions, Supercaps GENERALLY store energy from static electricity.
Supercaps have a lot of advantages over batteries and may one day replace batteries as the dominant portable energy storage technology.
They charge ridiculously fast, have a virtually unlimited cycle life, they work better than batteries in extreme temperatures and they can also have a higher power density than batteries.
In other words, they can transfer energy much faster than batteries.
But Supercaps have one major disadvantage, they have much lower energy density and that is why batteries have wider applications.
And this takes us to Pseudocapacitors.
Think of pseudocapacitor as a bridge between batteries and supercapacitors as they maintain a lot of the same advantages as supercaps but have higher energy densities.
But the challenge with improving energy density in pseudocapacitors is as you increase the thickness of the electrode usually made out of manganese oxide, the performance of the device drops rapidly because the ions have to move through more material.
And this is where Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory comes in.
On October 18th the lab reported that they developed an electrode out of 3D-Printed Graphene Aerogel that has the highest ratio of energy stored per unit of surface area ever recorded for a supercap.
And by small chance you don’t know what graphene is, there are tons of videos out there about it but it’s simply a sheet of silicon one atom thick that scientist slap on anything and makes it 5 or 10 times better.

Anyway, Lawrence Livermore has been fabricating electrodes this way for a while but the difference this time is Lawrence Livermore has greatly improved the graphene aerogel leading to this record-breaking performance.
The way it works is the aerogel is printed as a scaffold composed of a tiny porous rod meaning it has a bunch of tiny holes and spaces.
Then manganese oxide I loaded into the scaffold allowing for much more of it in the electrode without slowing down the ions.
This is called mass-loading, and that is the record that the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The electrode they built has 100 milligrams of manganese oxide per square cm, compared to typical commercial supercaps that have only 10 milligrams per square cm!
Another benefit from this breakthrough is that it will allow supercaps to cheaper to produce.
You see, manufactures have to stack thin layers of current collectors, made out of metal sheets coated with electrode material in order to increase energy densities without sacrificing performance and this increases material costs.
It would take ten layers of current collectors to equal the energy density of the 3D printed Electrode.
With this breakthrough, it appears that scientists are getting closer and closer to filling the gaps between batteries and supercaps.
So, when can we expect to see supercaps in our devices?
Not soon enough!
All kidding aside, this is an exciting and promising breakthrough in portable energy storage technology to add to the long list of other exciting and promising breakthroughs and hopefully, in the next 10 years, we can see either battery replacing supercaps or solid state batteries actually come to market.
Until then, we can dream of an incredible future….

Alright, that’s all I have for now.
I hope you enjoyed your journey, if you did, please leave a like and subscribe.
I am NeoScribe and I’ll see you on the next journey
 
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15 November 2019
 
Urbix Returns To Where It Started After Getting 'Incubated" @ Launch Point
Looks like 'a day of glory' for District 5 Councilmember David Luna with ribbon-cutting scissors in-hand in the photo opp that got featured in a press release from City of Mesa Newsroom yesterday:
Mesa celebrates expansion of Urbix Resources
into Falcon District
(Launch Point got re-located into empty space at The Mesa Center for Higher Education, the former police station, before city officials cooked-up plans for an ASU satellite campus.)
 
"Urbix was founded in 2014 and was the first client at the downtown Mesa location of LaunchPoint, the Mesa Technology Accelerator whose mission is to stimulate the establishment and growth of small technology-based companies and other businesses in the east valley. . . "
 
YOU CAN READ ALL OF WHAT THE POLITICIANS SAID in the press release, but here's the better read-out:
"This is a fantastic moment in our young history. To see how this relatively small facility of just 31,000 square feet will have such positive impact in the U.S.'s Energy Storage Critical Mineral Strategy, and also in the world, is super motivating and exciting,"
Urbix Resources Chairman and Co-Founder Nico Cuevas said.
 
"This is a huge milestone for us and we have plenty more work to do. We have an incredible team at Urbix and amazing support from the City of Mesa, the region and the state of Arizona."
> In support of its eco-friendly approach, Urbix Resources was named Cleantech Open's Best Business Model in 2017.
Cleantech runs the world's largest clean technology accelerator program, with the mission to find, fund, and foster entrepreneurs with ideas to solve our greatest environmental and energy challenges.
For more information about Urbix, visit
www.urbixresources.com.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Your MesaZona blogger had this to say on more than three earlier posts:
 
1 Most recent
30 September 2019
Mesa Start-Up Urbix Expands World-Wide Downstream Processing of High-Grade Graphene Products
BRIEF-Bass Metals Signs MoU With Urbix Resources LLC
Stock Markets7 hours ago (Sep 30, 2019 12:30)
Sept 30 (Reuters) - Bass Metals Ltd BSM.AX :* SIGNED A STRATEGIC MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING WIT URBIX RESOURCES LLC
* MOU TO WORK OVER NEXT 180 DAYS TO ESTABLISH JV FOR PROCESSING OF BASS HIGH GRADE GRAPHITE INTO VALUE ADDED DOWNSTREAM PRODUCTS
_________________________________________________________________________________
Bass Metals plans Madagascar graphite downstream JV
30th September 2019 
By Simone Liedtke
Writer
ASX-listed Bass Metals and downstream graphite processor Urbix Resources have signed a strategic memorandum of understanding (MoU) to identify the optimum joint venture (JV) structure and product mix with a view of establishing a production facility in Madagascar.
 
Bass’ large flake dominated deposit is suitable for a broad range of downstream applications, the mining company release said on Monday.
 
Bass and Urbix would delineate terms for establishing a JV facility in Madagascar capable of producing a purified high-value graphite product, which would use Urbix’s propriety technology and Bass’ graphmada large flake graphite.
 
 

Urbix’s proprietary advanced technology includes environment- and cost-conscious purification methods that were not reliant on environmentally unsustainable hydrofluoric acid treatments, Bass noted.
 
> Urbix is currently engaged in building what will be one of the largest natural graphite purification facilities in North America.
> Upon completion, the 9 450 km2 facility at Falcon Airfield in Mesa, Arizona will have the capability of purifying up to 24 000 t/y.

> The parties would aim to establish the JV in the next 180 days
Source: https://m.miningweekly.com

https://twitter.com/urbixresources

Valley graphene startup to open larger Mesa production facility 
Startup also unloaded assets in Mexico for undisclosed price
 
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