Avadain

Avadain is an advanced-materials company in Eads, Tennessee that has developed a manufacturing process for high-quality graphene flakes. Its technology uses optimized electrochemical exfoliation and expansion — a green process originally invented and patented at Fraunhofer in Germany with Panasonic funding — to produce what it calls LTDF (large, thin, defect-free) graphene at a claimed 70%-plus yield. Rather than manufacturing at scale itself, Avadain licenses the process to chemical companies and advanced-materials manufacturers, and grants field-of-use licenses for specific applications. The company says that while more than 400 companies claim to make graphene, it has the only known technology to produce industrial quantities of the large, thin, defect-free variety.

Most commercial graphene is small, thick or defect-ridden; Avadain's process targets flakes over 25 square micrometers and under five atomic layers, which it argues is the only form that delivers graphene's full theoretical performance, produced by a low-cost green electrochemical route instead of energy-intensive alternatives.