Facilities | GrapheneX

Laboratory for Graphene-X and Thermal Engineering

This laboratory, xxx sq. ft in floor space is housed at Virginia Tech’s Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science’s Kelly Hall. It is well equipped to conduct leading-edge research related to coal-derived graphene and high porosity metal foams. It has an operational lab-scale production line for the synthesis of the graphene from coal, graphite or other renewable precursors materials including three enclosed lab spaces, four fume hoods. To be more specific, it has the high-energy ball-milling and the conventional ball-milling for preparing the finest coal particles and tubular and muffle furnaces to process them. Also, the probe-type ultra-sonication and the centrifuging machine are available to exfoliate or disperse nanomaterials in the solution and to separate the nanomaterials depending on the particle sizes, respectively. In addition, the laboratory is home to the experimental rigs for the measurement of thermal conductance and convective transport in interface materials and high porosity foams.

Testing and Characterization Facilities

For the characterization of nanomaterials, we have access to VT’s state-of-the-art Nanoscale Characterization and Fabrication Laboratory (NCFL), (bottom left). Located in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, the 15,000 sq. ft., the NCFL was created to provide researchers with the tools to work in converging disciplines at the nanoscale dimension. Established in 2007, it is equipped with more than $13 million in highly specialized equipment for electron microscopy, optical microscopy, and several other spectroscopic and analytic techniques, as well as office space for staff and visitors. These include, among others, FESEM, ESEM, TEM: EM420, TEM: JEOL 2100, TEM: Titan300, SIMS, FIB, XPS, AFM, FT-Raman, TrioboIndenter, 3DDVM, and Cryo Ultramicrotome.

An additional facility closely related to the NCFL is VTSun (bottom right), which is located within Kelly Hall on the main Virginia Tech campus. Its infrastructure includes laboratory space with extensive nanoparticle synthesis facilities and a wide array of analytical instruments (mostly benchtop size), as well as meeting and office space for staff and visitors