Firm Commercializing Groundbreaking Research at UA

Pictured above: Paul Thibado poses with graphene-harvesting chips under development. (Photo courtesy of UA)

The company tagline — tiny scale, massive impact — effectively conveys the concept behind the commercialization of graphene, of which Fayetteville sits on the cutting edge and NTS Innovations seeks to market.

NTS is a Florida-based firm with a location at the Arkansas Research and Technology Park in Fayetteville, where the firm hopes to commercialize the groundbreaking research of University of Arkansas scientists pertaining to graphene energy harvesting.

Graphene is a microscopic, naturally modified structure extracted from graphite. Made of pure carbon, it consists of a single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice. Though graphene had existed in theory for decades and had likely been discovered unintentionally through various applications of graphite on metal surfaces, it was 2004 before graphene was isolated and identified at the University of Manchester in England. That work earned the Manchester scientists a Nobel Prize.

Graphene is known for its extreme strength, light weight, flexibility, transparency, endurance and ability to absorb light of all visible wavelengths. Plus, it is an efficient conductor of heat and electricity. It represents the strongest material ever measured at a microscopic level, according to research published in Science and Nature Connections.

“Graphene has become a valuable and useful nanomaterial due to its exceptionally high tensile strength, electrical conductivity, transparency and ultra-thinness,” said Tom Buzzell, chief operating officer at NTS.

Tom Buzzell

Urban legend even says graphene can stop a bullet. The modern-day mithril from Tolkien’s legendarium is currently used for small-scale applications such as electronics, energy storage, sensors and biomedical devices. If the effective use of graphene could be scaled up, the material’s potential is vast.

“Graphene is the strongest material ever tested in a laboratory and comprises a single layer of carbon atoms,” Buzzell said. “The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences illustrated that a one-square-meter graphene hammock would support a 4-kilogram cat but would weigh only as much as one of the cat’s whiskers. As with any nanomaterial, graphene requires specific procedures and careful handling steps to confirm and preserve its quality.”

That is where the work being done by UA researchers in Fayetteville comes in. Physicist Paul Thibado and his team invented a process called graphene energy harvesting that could help scientists preserve the material’s quality as it is scaled up for use with larger devices. Their work in this area spans almost a decade.

“The group was studying the properties of graphene using a scanning tunneling microscope and observed behavior in freestanding graphene they theorized could be leveraged for energy harvesting,” said NTS CEO Don Meyer. “Since then, the group has been rigorously researching the topic and have produced several groundbreaking papers.”

Don Meyer

Energy harvesting derives energy from the ambient environment for storage or use by electronic devices.

“Traditional sources of ambient energy include light, vibration, radio waves, temperature gradients and more,” Meyer said. “What is unique about graphene energy harvesting is the ability to create nanoscale ‘harvesters’ that can be operated in locations and form factors where traditional harvesting methods are not practical due to cost, size or environmental limitations.”

The graphene energy harvester being developed by Thibado and his team entails the design of a graphene circuit capable of gathering energy from the heat of the earth and storing it in capacitors for later use. It is potentially groundbreaking stuff. The energy harvester could also apply to other microscopic materials.

“The ability to harvest energy in all types of ambient environments at nanoscale is a game-changing opportunity,” said Ryan McCoy, vice president of sales and marketing at NTS. “Imagine having an energy harvester small enough to implement directly into electronic devices. Today, wireless sensor networks typically rely on finite batteries. Batteries are desirable because they allow sensors to be placed remotely without the need to be hardwired. Eventually, however, batteries run out and need to be replaced or recharged.”

When multiplied by billions of sensors, labor to change the batteries is costly and cumbersome, and the environmental impact of disposed batteries becomes a concern, he added.

“Being able to lengthen battery life or, in some cases, completely self-power electronics is an exciting prospect of graphene energy harvesting,” McCoy said.

In 2020, Tibado’s team created a circuit capable of capturing graphene’s thermal motion and converting it into an electrical current.

“There was always this question out there: ‘If our graphene device is in a really quiet, really dark environment, would it harvest any energy or not?’ The conventional answer to that is no, as it apparently defies the laws of physics, but the physics had never been looked at carefully,” he said. “I think people were afraid of the topic a bit, so everybody just said, ‘I’m not touching that,’ but the question just kept demanding our attention. Honestly, its solution was only found through the perseverance and diverse approaches of our unique team.”

The kicker, of course, is making the process work reliably and affordably on a bigger stage. Buzzell said one of the challenges has been scaling graphene production for use in bulky products such as building materials, composites and batteries at a cost acceptable to the marketplace.

“In the past few years, graphene production has made strides in terms of increasing volume and quality of material, as well as reducing price,” he said. “For example, as of 2021, Ford Motor Co. has begun using graphene-enhanced components in multiple areas of its vehicles.”

Ford developed a graphene-enhanced polyurethane foam that reduces noise in vehicles while also lowering their weight. The foam is now used in all Ford’s North American vehicles. One of the biggest challenges was dispersing graphene into a viscous polymer and keeping it from collapsing during mixing, Ford officials reported at a recent polyurethane industry conference.

NTS was founded in 2016 to commercialize nanotechnology. It acquired its first license to commercialize graphene energy harvesting from the UA in 2018, set up shop inside the Innovation Center on the research park campus and has since partnered with the university on two more related licenses.

Meyer said the setup in Fayetteville has enabled NTS to effectively collaborate with UA students and staff and leverage the university’s talent pool through the hiring of full- and part-time staff and interns. Now, the firm is preparing for the next step in the process.

“NTS has engaged with over 100 organizations regarding interest in graphene energy harvesting and is currently involved in investor and partnership discussions,” he said. “In parallel with GEH, NTS is also developing other energy harvesting components, including a patent-pending form of rectification for existing transducers.”