Graphene Plastic: How It Works and How to Make It

Graphene Plastic Additive container with back label and SKU barcode

By Frans Alkemade, CEO, Graphene Integrations

Shop: see sizes, SKUs and the spec sheet for the Graphene Plastic Additive in our store, or browse all graphene products.

"Graphene plastic" usually means a polymer with a small amount of graphene mixed in. Researchers call it a graphene polymer nanocomposite. Companies use it to try to make plastic parts stiffer, tougher, better at blocking gases, or able to carry a little electric charge. This article explains what graphene plastic is, what graphene can change in a polymer, why dispersion is the hard part, and how compounders add graphene without handling powder.

What is graphene plastic?

Graphene plastic is any thermoplastic or thermoset that contains graphene as a filler. The host can be polyethylene, polypropylene, nylon, PLA, PET, ABS, epoxy, PVC or many others. The graphene is a minor ingredient. The polymer still sets most of the properties, and the graphene modifies them.

Graphene is a sheet of carbon one atom thick. Because each flake is so thin and so wide compared with its thickness, a small amount by weight can give a very large surface in contact with the polymer. That is why graphene gets so much attention as a filler.

What graphene can change in plastics

Reviews of graphene polymer nanocomposites list several properties that can improve when graphene is well dispersed (Polymers; Polymer):

Stiffness and strength, such as tensile and flexural modulus.
Barrier to gases and moisture, from the same "longer path" effect seen in coatings.
Thermal stability and, at higher loadings, thermal conductivity.
Electrical behaviour for antistatic or dissipative parts, once the flakes connect into a network.

Graphene Integrations does not publish test numbers for plastics. Each result is evaluated against the customer's current compound.

Why dispersion decides everything

The same reviews agree on one problem: graphene flakes like to stick back together. Clumps act like defects and can make a part weaker, not stronger. Researchers use solution mixing, melt blending and in-situ polymerization to get flakes apart, and melt blending on a twin-screw extruder is the most practical route at industrial scale (Materials, MDPI). Dry powder also brings dust and handling problems on a production floor.

How our Graphene Plastic Additive works

The Graphene Plastic Additive is graphene pre-dispersed in a resin matched to your polymer. The graphene is already separated and wetted, so you add a liquid instead of a dusty powder.

For: thermoplastic and thermoset compounds where you want to evaluate mechanical or barrier properties against your baseline.
Carrier: resin dispersion matched to your polymer.
Dose: typically 1% to 7% by weight, depending on the application.
Mixing: add during compounding or resin mixing and process as normal; we recommend the addition point for your system.
Made in the USA in Charlotte, NC. Patent pending. No carbon black. Never sold as a powder.

Graphene vs. other plastic fillers

Compounders already use talc, glass fiber, carbon fiber, carbon black and carbon nanotubes. Graphene is not a drop-in replacement for any of them. Glass and carbon fiber are used at much higher loadings for structural reinforcement. Carbon black is the usual low-cost choice for colour and static control. Graphene's appeal is that a small, well-dispersed amount may move several properties at once, for example stiffness and barrier together. Whether that is worth it in your part is exactly what a side-by-side trial answers. Our additives contain no carbon black, so any change you measure comes from the graphene and the carrier.

What is a graphene additive?

A graphene additive is a product that brings graphene into another material at a low dose, the way a pigment or a reinforcing filler does. The graphene is the active part. The carrier around it decides whether it mixes into your product cleanly.

Why a pre-dispersed liquid beats powder. Dry graphene powder is light and dusty, hard to wet out, and its flakes tend to clump back together. Clumps act like defects, so a powder can make a product worse instead of better. Our graphene additives are supplied as liquids with the flakes already separated in a carrier matched to your system, so they mix in with the equipment you already run and there is no fine dust to manage. We never sell powder.

Dosing. Our graphene additives are typically used at 1% to 7% by weight, depending on the job. More is not automatically better, so a trial should bracket two or three doses.

Trialing. Compare against a baseline you already make, change only the additive dose, and run the tests your customers use. Our guide on how to run a graphene additive trial and our guide to choosing a graphene additive go into more detail.

How to run a trial

Pick a baseline grade you make now, with known test data.
Tell us the polymer, the process (extrusion, injection molding, casting) and the property you want to move.
Make the baseline and two or three doses within 1% to 7%, keeping everything else identical.
Check processing first: melt flow, pressure, appearance.
Test the properties that matter to your customer, such as tensile, impact, heat deflection or permeation, on parts made the same way.

Where graphene plastic is used

Common targets include automotive and under-hood parts, packaging films that need a better barrier, pipes and tanks, housings for electronics that need static control, and recycled resins that need a stiffness boost. Graphene is black, so it suits dark or pigmented parts best.

For compounding detail, read how compounders get graphene into thermoplastics and thermosets, or see the graphene polymer composites page.