At present, thermal membrane is the fastest application direction of graphene. This is mainly due to the continuous improvement in performance of consumer electronic products represented by smart phones in recent years, especially with the arrival of 5G era, the demand for heat dissipation of products also further increases.

Graphene, on the other hand, has now been shown to have the best thermal conductivity of any single material. In October 2018, Huawei introduced graphene cooling technology for the first time in its Mate 20 X, which also kicked off the application of graphene in smartphones.

Before graphene cooling technology was applied, smart phones used artificial graphite sheets to conduct heat. However, the raw material of the artificial graphite sheet is polyimide film. On the one hand, the material needs to be imported and the cost is high. On the other hand, the thickness of the artificial graphite sheet prepared by polyimide film can reach up to 40 microns at present.

Compared with artificial graphite sheets, the raw materials of graphene can all be made in China without the need for import. At the same time, graphene has better thermal conductivity and can be customized in thickness. For example, single-layer graphene thermal conductivity film and multi-layer artificial graphite sheet have similar thermal conductivity performance, but the cost is lower and there is room for improvement.

At the same performance, graphene is cheaper, at the same price, graphene is better. It is this high cost performance that triggers the "resonance" of the industry chain -- which is the most needed thing for mobile phone manufacturers to compete.

At present, the new material enterprise of the upstream of the industrial chain, Morui Technology, has been invested by Xiaomi. It plans to produce 100,000 square meters of graphene thermal conductive film per month by the end of this year, which can supply 10 million mobile phones according to the supply of 100 mobile phones per square meter.

According to an IDC report, the world shipped 1.371 billion mobile phones in 2019, of which about 370 million were shipped in China. As 5G mobile penetration increases, IDC estimates that the market for graphene thermal membranes could reach $2.3 billion in two to three years.

Introduction to graphene thermal membrane

Graphene has good thermal conductivity. The thermal conductivity of a single sheet of graphene is as high as 1,300W/m·K, and its bending resistance and processing properties are better than those of the current commercial artificial graphite sheets. It can be used as an excellent heat dissipation material for various electronic devices.