To unlock a more sustainable future, graphite is key. The issue: there’s a $14 billion shortage of the crucial resource on the horizon.
To unlock a more sustainable future, graphite is key. The issue: there’s a $14 billion shortage of the crucial resource on the horizon. In this episode, David Karsten is joined by Dr Jason Fogg from the Curtin Carbon Group to explore how his innovation, RapidGraphite, can turn carbon into battery-grade graphite within seconds.
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Dr Jason Fogg is a researcher in the Curtin Carbon Group carbon and the co-developer of RapidGraphite. Dr Fogg is a specialist in materials science, conducting experiments at ultra-high temperatures up to 3000˚C. Fogg has innovated new furnace techniques to access extreme temperatures and study advanced carbon materials for decarbonisation.
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Host: David Karsten
Content Creator: Karen Green
Recordist: Jayden McLean
Executive Producers: Anita Shore and Matthew Sykes
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00:00:00:04 - 00:00:08:21
Sarah Taillier
This is The Future Of, where experts share their vision of the future and how their work is helping shape it for the better.
00:00:09:19 - 00:00:33:06
David Karsten
Hello, I'm David Karsten. Most of us are familiar with graphite as the pencils we grasped in our early school years. In fact, the word graphite is from the Greek language and translates as to write. Graphite is actually a crystalline form of carbon found in metamorphic and igneous rocks all over the world. It's a unique material, soft and greasy, but able to withstand high temperatures.
00:00:34:02 - 00:01:00:24
David Karsten
It's an excellent conductor of electricity and is chemically very stable. With all those qualities, it's not surprising that graphite has many industrial uses, including for lubricants, batteries, the production of glass and steel, the processing of iron, and the graphene sheets that create lightweight but strong sports equipment like our tennis rackets. Because it's chemically inert, graphite is even used in nuclear reactors to stabilise nuclear reactions.
00:01:01:06 - 00:01:33:16
David Karsten
It's a valuable material, but producing a graphite for industrial use creates large carbon emissions. However, a Curtin University research team is developing a world first solution that can quickly manufacture graphite that's environmentally friendly for use in lithium-ion batteries. Joining me today to discuss the innovation is Dr. Jason Fogg from Curtin University's Carbon Research Group. Jason, first of all, before we go into rapid graphite, can you tell us about what graphite in its natural form actually is and what it's used for?
00:01:33:21 - 00:01:55:07
Dr Jason Fogg
No worries. So graphite is just another form of carbon. So there's many forms of carbon. It can be like an activated carbon that you might get in a water filter system or it could be, say, charcoal that you would see in the bottom of a fire. Or people are more familiar, maybe with the high value form of carbon being a diamond, a diamond ring.
00:01:55:08 - 00:02:20:18
Dr Jason Fogg
Now, diamonds, quite a hard form of carbon, but graphite itself is just a a layered form of carbon that's arranged in sort of a hexagonal lattice in sheets. Those single one of those sheets is called graphene, which gets a lot of media buzz these days. But when you stack it up, it becomes a soft, silvery material that's quite useful in lithium ion batteries.
00:02:21:24 - 00:02:33:14
David Karsten
Well, just on that, what is what is your innovation? How this demand for for more graphite as has actually led to some excellent work by you and your team, Jason.
00:02:34:06 - 00:03:03:24
Dr Jason Fogg
Yes. So our work didn't start targeting the battery market initially. It was actually Blue Sky Research. We asked a pretty fundamental question of why is it so difficult to make graphite? This was a research question that we started to explore back in 2018. And from there, we we followed along from...a thermodynamics perspective, graphite is the most stable form of carbon.
00:03:03:24 - 00:03:33:02
Dr Jason Fogg
It should be very easy to make. However, it's not. From the 1950s, a researcher called Rosalind Franklin. She's better known for imaging DNA, but she actually started research in graphite and how to make graphite. She was the first to discover that, although from the thermodynamics perspective, all carbon materials, when heated, should form graphite quite easily. She showed that most carbon materials, when heated, actually don't form graphite.
00:03:33:02 - 00:03:40:06
Dr Jason Fogg
And for the last 70 years it's been a real question as to why most materials don't form graphite.
00:03:40:24 - 00:03:43:18
David Karsten
Was that research theoretical or was it also practical?
00:03:44:01 - 00:04:18:13
Dr Jason Fogg
A bit of both. So we explored it in Molecular Dynamics Simulations. The team in the Curtin Carbon Group have a lot of expertise through Nigel Marks and my former PhD supervisor, Irene Suarez Martinez, who did a lot of research in the dynamics simulation of graphite and and how it forms. But then throughout my Ph.D. work, we started to explore experimentally, which involved heating materials to extreme temperatures up to around 3000 degrees Celsius.
00:04:18:15 - 00:04:23:09
David Karsten
How is that even possible here? That must require some very specialised equipment.
00:04:23:20 - 00:04:53:17
Dr Jason Fogg
Yes, we've got a these days we've got a customised furnace that allows us to do it. However, when we first started, it was on a bit of a shoestring budget as most research starts, and we started repurposing a different piece of equipment called an atomic absorption spectrometer. We sort of tweaked it and repurposed it to allow us to resistively heat material to these wildly higher temperatures, you know, 3000 degrees.
00:04:53:17 - 00:05:18:11
Dr Jason Fogg
It's about half the surface temperature of the sun. Jace And we were able to actually get to that temperature in a matter of seconds, which gave us a unique opportunity to explore how graphite is formed really quickly and explore the kinetics of that process. From there, we were actually one of the first groups to be able to experimentally see graphite forming in on the second time frame.
00:05:18:20 - 00:05:41:09
Dr Jason Fogg
And with the group's background in molecular dynamics, we were able to join the experimental and the computational research sort of meet in the middle that allowed us to get the first kind of atomic level detail process for how graphite forms and experimentally observe that essentially in snapshot frames over a couple of seconds.
00:05:41:19 - 00:05:58:23
David Karsten
That would have been such an exciting moment when I guess a lot of that theoretical research was confirmed as having, I guess, practical applications in a practical, real world setting. When did industry start to come calling? Did they cotton onto the work that you were doing?
00:05:59:15 - 00:06:38:06
Dr Jason Fogg
Yeah, so we had kind of hunkered down really over over COVID and done a lot of this research. So we hadn't published too much or spoke at many conferences because Perth as a as a state really locked down over COVID. And that gave us a unique opportunity to really focus on the research. And we had developed it to a point where once the borders kind of opened up and as researchers we started to go to conferences again, we'd gone to the World Convention on on Carbon in London in 2022, and we were presenting our work and our findings there.
00:06:38:06 - 00:07:02:04
Dr Jason Fogg
And that was really when industry started to take note. We were presenting on new knowledge that sort of showed that we could make graphite in a matter of seconds rather than the conventional wisdom that sort of says that it takes many hours at these extreme temperatures to make graphite. We were we were sort of inundated with approaches from from industry.
00:07:03:12 - 00:07:09:09
David Karsten
Paint a picture for us and make it easy for us. If you don't mind, Jason, why would they be interested.
00:07:10:08 - 00:07:38:19
Dr Jason Fogg
When you're heating to these extreme temperatures, it takes a lot of energy. The common manufacturing process for producing tonne-scale graphite is extremely wasteful waste, about half the energy that's provided to it. And in the modern age, when we talk about graphite, most people probably think of a pencil. But graphite is becoming more and more important in lithium ion batteries.
00:07:39:01 - 00:08:05:18
Dr Jason Fogg
And the role that lithium ion batteries have in the green energy transition is driving a massive spike in demand for for graphite. And, you know, graphite makes up about a quarter of the weight in a lithium ion battery. So each of us sitting here sort of we have a phone or we might have a smartwatch. When you look at that, watch a large proportion of the weight that watch is the battery and a large proportion of the weight in that battery is graphite.
00:08:06:03 - 00:08:32:09
Dr Jason Fogg
In fact, graphite makes up about 10 to 15% of the price of any battery. And as we as we transition to cleaner and more renewable modes of transportation or energy production, we start talking about batteries more and more, and that more and more leads to more demand. You know, when we need more batteries, we need more of the minerals that go into it for graphite, what that looks like is massive shortages.
00:08:32:21 - 00:09:01:22
Dr Jason Fogg
So I think forecasts vary a lot. But if you focus on the forecasts that show for battery grade graphite, it shows about a 9 million tonne shortage by 2035. And currently there is no way that we know of that we can provide that shortage and fill that gap up. That's where our research and rapid graphite really has its application is in bridging that gap from the demands and says that we need this much more graphite.
00:09:02:05 - 00:09:03:02
Dr Jason Fogg
How are we going to get it?
00:09:03:22 - 00:09:22:24
David Karsten
Well, now you've provided us with a really compelling answer, Jason, the the fact that you're not actually utilising a resource that needs to be mined, a naturally occurring resource leads to the question had how are you making rapid graphite? Tell us about the raw materials that you're sort of employing in this process.
00:09:23:13 - 00:09:53:07
Dr Jason Fogg
Yeah. So I guess graphite 101 is that you can either mine graphite, dig it out of the ground and that that process is incredibly wasteful. You lose about 70/80% of what you dig during purification and because for graphite to make it into a battery it needs to be over 99.95% pure and the purification from mined graphite is using really dangerous acids where a single drop of it on your skin would kill you.
00:09:54:08 - 00:10:30:09
Dr Jason Fogg
Or you can you can manufacture graphite, which is where RapidGraphite comes in. Now, the techniques and the conventional methods for manufacturing graphite, they really haven't changed since the early 1900s. And in fact, 98% of the world's graphite is for batteries in particular is produced from one country. It creates a lot of sovereign risk when we start talking about the importance of of these materials in the green energy transition, where rapid graphite comes in, is that we're working on a revolution in how to manufacture graphite, our technology.
00:10:30:16 - 00:11:15:22
Dr Jason Fogg
It allows us to take waste materials like biomass, which is sort of plant matter, waste plant matter, and add a specific proprietary catalyst to that process at using Rapid Pulse, quick manufacturing processing and turn it into graphite in a matter of seconds. So unlike conventional mining where you need to dig graphite out of the ground or conventional manufacturing where it's incredibly wasteful, as I talked about earlier about the energy losses or the the feedstocks for those conventional manufacturing processes.
00:11:15:22 - 00:11:34:00
Dr Jason Fogg
They're also petrochemicals. So there's kind of a mining exploration point there for that manufacturing process anyway. Ours is quite a lot simpler - we can we can take waste materials and process them through our process and make them into high value graphite. So lithium ion batteries.
00:11:34:11 - 00:11:49:04
David Karsten
And Jason Curtin has played obviously a very big part in in, I guess, supporting this research. What role exactly has has Curtin taken in in in the success of this? And is the university involved going forward?
00:11:50:07 - 00:12:22:24
Dr Jason Fogg
Yeah, thanks. Curtin has been a massive part of developing this and developing me, in fact. I was a Curtin undergraduate student who went on to do a PhD. As I mentioned earlier, the PhD work formed the foundation of the spin out RapidGraphite. And in fact Curtin's Trailblazer team and the commercialisation department have been instrumental in pushing us forward to to take what we were doing as, as researchers and see the commercial application of it.
00:12:24:05 - 00:12:50:07
Dr Jason Fogg
In fact, Trailblazer has just invested $500,000 in purchasing a furnace that will help us to scale our technology and make it make its way out of the laboratory and into the commercial domain. That furnace allows us to heat to the extreme temperatures that we require. It's actually going to be the hottest furnace in an Australian university.
00:12:50:22 - 00:13:27:03
David Karsten
Well, that's quite a title, isn't it, Jason? Home of the hottest furnace at a tertiary level in Australia. I'll add that to the stats. That's, that's pretty exciting. The look I guess the other question I have in relation to to commercialising is with, with the biomass and and also waste materials generally how much shrinkage or how much how much do you require to say produce a gram of of powdered synthetic graphite?
00:13:28:04 - 00:13:51:21
Dr Jason Fogg
Yeah. No worries. So when you talk about biomass, that's an easy one to work with. So rather than a gram, let's talk about sort of a kilo. So when you talk about using a biomass feedstock, you lose from the wood that you would look at in a tree. You lose about two thirds of that weight in the first sort of processing step.
00:13:52:15 - 00:14:19:24
Dr Jason Fogg
And that two thirds is mainly made up of moisture, you know, trees that they they need water and they hold a lot of water. So from making about a kilo of graphite, you're probably looking at needing about three kilos worth of of of biomass. And then you would process that and do the subsequent processing steps which would lead to about a kilo of graphite.
00:14:20:02 - 00:14:20:10
Dr Jason Fogg
Yeah.
00:14:20:24 - 00:14:29:13
David Karsten
Jason at a household level, what does RapidGraphite represent as far as an opportunity is concerned in making a tangible difference to the energy transition?
00:14:30:01 - 00:14:52:15
Dr Jason Fogg
Yeah, so RapidGraphite, we've got a pretty simple aim of making low cost graphite for lithium ion batteries. What that means to the Australian consumer is that the batteries that they could use and they could buy for, let's say that their home solar system would be cheaper. Currently a lot of Australian families are doing their part in the green energy transition.
00:14:52:20 - 00:15:18:08
Dr Jason Fogg
They've got solar on their roofs and a day like today in Perth, which has a lot of sun, means that they're producing a lot of energy. But the missing link is that they're not able to use that energy at night when they want to turn on their lights or, you know, when they're home from work. What we're aiming to do is to lower the cost of batteries so that Australian families can, can capitalise on their solar investment.
00:15:18:23 - 00:15:23:13
David Karsten
So right now we're producing it at home, but we've got nowhere to put it. That's essentially the issue, isn't it?
00:15:23:16 - 00:15:51:00
Dr Jason Fogg
That's that's the issue. And that's a that's a massive issue that doesn't just plague the Australian family. It's also on a national scale. You know, as we transition to net zero, we're looking at implementing large solar arrays. They're going to need grid scale batteries, storage without it. You know, the, the massive renewable resource that Australia has through wind and solar just goes to waste.
00:15:51:00 - 00:15:55:03
Dr Jason Fogg
We have to be able to store it and we need graphite to make the batteries to store it.
00:15:56:03 - 00:16:23:17
David Karsten
Jason, if you don't mind going back a step or two, just regarding the technology that you've developed and with your team, when you were going through your experimentation with with the conversion of biomass and otherwise materials into rapid graphite, what did you notice in terms of the way the materials were behaving and what led you to this 10 seconds at 3000 degrees Celsius formula?
00:16:24:13 - 00:16:57:09
Dr Jason Fogg
Yes. Originally, the start of the research, the short timescales was more of a decision out of necessity than than choice. The furnaces that we were using, it wasn't able to maintain temperature for the conventional wisdom, which would say graphite takes hours to form. But we figured, let's have a pump, let's have a go and see what we'd get.
00:16:57:12 - 00:17:30:15
Dr Jason Fogg
And to our amazement, we actually in 10 second runs, we got high quality graphite, which led us to to keep experimenting and keep following our nose. It was a surprise to us the the rate at which graphite formed we we never expected it to form as quick as it did, but that 10 seconds and that short timeframe was completely luck of trying to use these different technologies that we had on hands to to heat materials.
00:17:30:15 - 00:17:34:17
Dr Jason Fogg
And it just so happened that they were limited to a few seconds of use.
00:17:34:23 - 00:17:44:18
David Karsten
Jason, you telling me that because of the limitations of the apparatus that was available to you and your team at the time, that that's how you came to these conclusions?
00:17:45:06 - 00:17:58:10
Dr Jason Fogg
Yeah, that is definitely what I'm telling you. It does play in hand with the team's guidance and choice to use this technology that was.
00:17:59:11 - 00:18:00:10
David Karsten
A real a real.
00:18:01:04 - 00:18:21:04
Dr Jason Fogg
Hindsight 20/20. It's a great decision to give it a shot on the atomic absorption spectrometer and see whether or not this existing piece of equipment could be used in a new way. The team's choice of that really just we stumbled our way through and found something that really has application and value.
00:18:21:17 - 00:18:29:02
David Karsten
That's that's awesome. That's must have been such a joyous moment when when these results started revealing themselves.
00:18:29:22 - 00:18:57:12
Dr Jason Fogg
Yes, sure. Particularly the first run of results and the first couple, they were met with a bit of skepticism. It was do it two or three times before. We are really sure. But yeah, we dotted our I's and cross the T's and we've sort of been riding it since and just seeing where we can go with it and what we can tweak and refine in order to optimise the process.
00:18:58:08 - 00:19:13:05
David Karsten
In terms of the existing research over the previous century leading into your work and your team's work. Jason The existing knowledge, did that hem you in at all or have you gone ahead and proved something new?
00:19:14:04 - 00:19:58:17
Dr Jason Fogg
Yeah. So the existing knowledge sort of starts at the thermodynamics, the foundational idea of here's a carbon phase diagram and that shows that graph on should be quite easy to to form. However, Rosalind Franklin's work showed that most carbon materials actually don't form graphite. It's only really a select group of petrochemicals that can make synthetic graphite. We started our research trying to better understand that that crossover and why thermodynamics doesn't sort of carry on into the experimental results.
00:19:58:17 - 00:20:23:19
Dr Jason Fogg
And from there, we started to find ways in which we could tweak things and different catalytic processes that allowed us to to go against that tacit knowledge of the literature for the last sort of century and make graphite from materials that others would consider to never be a source for graphite.
00:20:24:13 - 00:20:34:01
David Karsten
From a research perspective. Jason As far as your career goes, how satisfying is this this outcome so early on? I mean, you're a fairly young fellow.
00:20:34:16 - 00:21:27:06
Dr Jason Fogg
Yeah, it's been a it's been an interesting ride to come and stumble upon something that has such commercial application and has such a different perspective from that last century of research at a PhD level, and then carry on into a postdoc where we're looking at commercialising and taking our research into market. It's quite exciting. It's been a it's been a crazy ride, of course, and it continues to be, but learning all along the way and I just see it as a opportunity to learn new things and transition from that core research and carry on the thing that I'm passionate about, which is making graphite and make it in just a different domain.
00:21:28:08 - 00:21:39:16
David Karsten
These are exciting times for you, Jason, and exciting times for us as we watch you and your team work and and develop some really exciting new technology. We wish you well and thank you very much for joining us today.
00:21:40:02 - 00:21:43:08
Dr Jason Fogg
Thank you for the opportunity. It's been great to talk graphite with you.
00:21:44:12 - 00:21:59:21
Sarah Taillier
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