Hemp is more and more being utilised in a number of very important and rising industries, and gives many advantages over conventional supplies resulting from its carbon sequestration and soil rejuvenation properties, alongside its fast development cycle.
The worldwide hempcrete market, for instance, was estimated to be value almost $26bn final 12 months and is forecast to take care of an annual development price of 5% from 2025 to 2030.
Nonetheless, new and unlikely use circumstances for hemp are nonetheless being found and developed, together with bioplastics and gasoline. Henry Ford famously constructed a automobile partially comprised of hemp-derived plastics, which ran on hemp gasoline.
A more moderen discovery, and one which locations hemp on the leading edge of contemporary technological developments, is hemp-derived graphene.
Graphene and hemp-derived graphene
Within the early 2000s, graphene was touted as the brand new surprise materials, set to revolutionise a myriad of industries because of its excessive energy, flexibility, and ultra-light weight.
A million occasions thinner than a sheet of paper, 20 occasions as robust as metal and essentially the most conductive substance identified to man, the hype surrounding this new ‘wonder-material’ is comprehensible, however twenty years later graphene is much from being the ever present game-changer we have been promised.
Largely, that is as a result of problem in mass-producing graphene. Conventional graphene is commonly produced both by exfoliating mined graphite or by depositing carbon atoms by way of high-tech processes like chemical vapour deposition (CVD). Whereas these strategies yield very pure, skinny graphene, they’re complicated and costly.
That is the place hemp-derived graphene is available in. This sort of graphene makes use of the bast and interior bark fibres of business hemp, elements of the plant that are normally thought-about waste.
By ‘cooking’ these fibres by a chemical and thermal course of, the ensuing product varieties a porous, partially graphitic carbon carefully resembling graphene in each kind and performance.
Whereas it doesn’t produce a pristine carbon sheet like conventional strategies, this construction is definitely advantageous in sure purposes resulting from its ‘ultra-high’ floor space.
Crucially, producing hemp-derived graphene is ‘about 1000 occasions cheaper’ than conventional strategies. Estimates put the manufacturing value of hemp-based graphene at solely $500–$1000 per ton, versus hundreds of {dollars} per gram for high-grade typical graphene.
Premier Graphene
One firm main the cost on this area is California’s Premier Graphene, which produces industrial hemp-derived inexperienced graphene, developed in partnership with HGI Industrial Applied sciences.
Its President, Pedro Mendez, defined to Enterprise of Hashish that its partnership with Santa Rosa Inexperienced Seeds in Mexico, will enable it to domesticate three to 4 development cycles per 12 months.
Having labored within the hashish trade for over 30 years, beginning in California’s early leisure market, Mendez ultimately shifted his focus to industrial hemp, which he described as a ‘disruptive trade’.
“We began out with Hempcrete, making small bricks. On the time, I used to be working at a analysis centre in Southern California, and that’s actually the place issues started to take form.
“We began engaged on bioplastics, and that led us to experiment with graphene. I started performing some analysis and improvement in that space, and we ended up making a prototype.”
Mendez has been showcasing his prototype to numerous industries, together with international army contractors, building corporations and battery producers, an space he believes graphene might play a transformative position in over the approaching years.
“There are already corporations producing batteries comprised of graphene, and now Mexico is starting to put money into a program for superior supercomputer chips. Persons are nonetheless centered on lithium, however graphene batteries are considerably extra environment friendly. It’s only a matter of time earlier than the shift occurs.
“That is going to be a extremely necessary strategic materials for the US and globally. China has already began reducing again on exports of key uncooked supplies, that are crucial for issues like computer systems, batteries, and army {hardware}.
“That’s why I see such large potential. If I can arrange operations in Mexico, and if the US begins rising extra hemp domestically to provide graphene, we might actually fill a part of that void.”
Power storage is the flagship utility for hemp graphene at present, and analysis has proven that hemp-based supercapacitor electrodes have vitality densities round two or thrice increased than the present industrial supercapacitors, and may function at a broad temperature vary with out efficiency loss.
Sustainable cutting-edge know-how
Alongside the otherworldly properties of graphene, hemp-derived graphene additionally introduces a degree of sustainability seldom present in such industries.
“It’s inexpensive, renewable, and you may harvest it each three to 5 months,” Mendez continued.
“Once I was working at a analysis middle, we have been coping with quite a lot of leftover plant waste after every crop cycle. Disposing of it, simply choosing it up and hauling it to the dump, was truly costing us cash. So we began asking ourselves: what else can we do with this materials?
“That’s when the sunshine bulb went off. We began experimenting with all of the attainable methods to repurpose hemp waste, and that’s actually what sparked this complete journey.”
Premier Graphene is now looking for funding to scale up its graphene manufacturing operation, with the intention of ultimately with the ability to produce as much as a tonne a day, and achieve this sustainably.
