According to media reports, Dongxu Photovoltaic Company announced that it had launched the world's first graphene-based lithium-ion battery product - 'Allene King'. Dongxu photoelectric said that through the test, 'Allen King' charging time 15 minutes, its charging efficiency is 24 times that of ordinary charging products, can work in - 30 ~80 C environment, cycle life as high as 3500 times.

'The landing of King Allene has opened the era of graphene application in the field of energy.' 'The graphene technology is a revolutionary breakthrough in the application history of graphene in lithium batteries and a real killer application that the graphene industry is looking forward to,' said Wang Zhonghui, head of Dongxu Photoelectric Investment and chairman of Shanghai Carbon Source Huigu.

As soon as the news came out, some 'hunters' in the capital market claimed that the advent of 'King of Allenes' marked the birth of graphene batteries in China in a real sense, representing that China has taken the lead in graphene technology in other countries in the world and will bring about changes in the battery industry as a whole.

As for graphene batteries, 'It takes only a few seconds to charge a smartphone, eight minutes to charge a new energy vehicle, and it can drive 1000 kilometers...' In recent years, in many articles and speech occasions, people can often hear such a statement.

New energy vehicles have developed rapidly all over the world in recent years, but at present, it takes at least two hours to charge a good electric vehicle, which can run about 300 kilometers. This is already extremely efficient. More electric vehicles need three to four hours or more to charge a single time. The emergence of the concept of graphene batteries has given many people hope. Therefore, any ups and downs in graphene batteries will cause great ups and downs in the market. 'King of Allenes' landed, Dongxu photovoltaic shares immediately began to soar mode, a weekly rise of up to 40%. Data show that Dongxu Photovoltaic's share price has risen by about 60% in the past 20 days.

1. It is a common understanding in academia that it is extremely difficult to prepare graphene at present.

Before answering this question, let's look at what graphene is. In 2004, Andre Gaim and Constantine Novosholov of the University of Manchester, UK, stripped graphene from graphite sheets, and they won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics. Graphene is a honeycomb lattice two-dimensional atomic crystal composed of a single layer of carbon atoms. Its theoretical thickness is only 0.34 nanometers. Graphene has excellent electrical, thermal conductivity, barrier and other material properties. Therefore, its application in the field of batteries is highly regarded by many people as 'the king of materials'.

Andre Gaim and Constantine Novosholov of the University of Manchester, UK, stripped graphene from graphite sheets and won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics.

But in fact, academia has always had a common view on graphene, that is, the cost of graphene production is too high and the technology is not perfect, there are still great difficulties to achieve industrial application.

For example, in order to obtain graphene samples with the best electrical and mechanical properties, we still need to rely on the most time-consuming and costly means - mechanical stripping method, which is to use tape to adhere to graphite and separate graphene manually. That's how Novosholov made graphene in 2004. Despite the seemingly low level of equipment and technology required, the problem is that the success rate is lower. It's OK to get some samples for research. If it's industrialized, it's useless. It's no commercial value to have a grasp of graphite ore all over the world.

2. The so-called energy production is mostly graphite microchips or malformed rings, not real graphene.

After these years of efforts, although scientists have found some ways to increase production and reduce production costs of graphene, so far there is no technology that is really suitable for industrialized low-cost mass production. Some manufacturers claim to be able to produce 100 tons of graphene in large quantities, which is not really graphene at all. In addition to the single layer of graphene, there are two, three or more layers of graphite microchips.

On the other hand, a large number of single-layer graphene can be obtained by some new production methods. Although the central part of a graphene sheet is a perfect six-membered ring, the edge part is often disrupted and becomes a five-membered ring or a seven-membered ring. If graphene products are made, these abnormal rings not only distribute in the edge, but also exist in the interior of each piece of graphene, which becomes structural weakness and easy to break.

Gao Hongjun, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and researcher of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that only graphene without any defects has strong characteristics in practical applications. Otherwise, the strength of the whole graphene product will be greatly weakened. As a matter of fact, it is too early to commercialize graphene batteries on a large scale.

Liu Guanwei, senior engineer of Beijing Institute of Non-ferrous Metals Research and doctor of Tsinghua University, told Beijing Science and Technology Daily that graphene plays an additive role in most of the products, even if existing enterprises claim to have new graphene products, it is no exception in the field of batteries.

Wei Liangming, a researcher and doctoral supervisor at the Institute of Micro-nano Science and Technology, Shanghai Jiaotong University, is mainly engaged in the research of a new generation of high-performance lithium-ion batteries/supercapacitors and sensors. He said that graphene as a single product has not yet been applied.