A) BUSINESS CONCEPT PRESENTATION Area: Industrial Raw Material Production
First Target: Low cost production of graphene by the end of 2017.
Second Target: Development of innovative, graphene-based products, for instance (and not exhaustively): human exoskeletons using new materials, next generation processors and displays, new infrastructural components, 3D materials projects, the lot using graphene.
B) SOCIAL CAMPAIGN DESCRIPTION B.1) HISTORY OF THE GROUPThe team was originally formed by ten European citizens, and it spontaneously took shape in February 2016, motivated from the start by the great interest that this new technology is causing both in the industrial and the finance sectors. The project must therefore be considered experimental and has no juridical status, but the state-of-the-art is formed by a group of private individuals that freely decided to invest time and resources in this innovative idea.
While apparently a simple project, the team has been facing a series of problems of not easy solution: refining the production technology, choosing the best tools, equipment failures, the setting up of makeshift laboratories, choice and control of the suppliers, the devising of ways and means to fund and finance the project for its continuous development.
The indirect objective in the future is to transform this well-honed team first into a proper startup, and later into a company recognized by law on European soil.
Due to privacy considerations, the members of the team will remain anonymous until the company is established.
B.2) BRANDThe Brand is represented by the above logo, carrying the trademark GraphenX.
C) DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECTProducing graphene through an innovative technology based on liquid mixing.
Graphene is a material constitued by a single-atom layer (i.e., as thick as a single atom) of carbon atoms. It shows the mechanical resistance of diamond and the flexibility of plastic.
The discovery of Graphene and its application (development of a transistor) in 2004 led to the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010 to physicists Andrej Gejm and Konstantin Novoselov from Manchester University. Despite the initial problems encountered in the application of single-layer Graphene, the two researchers evolved the material up to the creation of the so-called double-layer Graphene, which shows higher resistance and flexibility of use.
D) COMMERCIAL FACTORS1) start-upFollowing an initial experimentation phase whose purpose has been to study and optimize the production method through exfoliation, which lasted about one month and did not use professional equipment, our team managed to produce a number of lots of graphene dust whose degree of purity was not determined, as testing the product (the result of non-professional processes) would be anti-economic. In August 2016 lab homogenizers and a professional dryer unit were purchased, and using these new instruments by October 2016 a new lot of graphene will be produced and then sent to the IIT (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia di Genova) for analysis and certification.
2) reference marketGraphene shows excellent characteristics as a conductor, and is the subject of intensive study programs for its application in the development of semiconductor systems.
Thanks to its properties it can be used for the production of ultra-resistant composite materials for nautical and aerospace application, electronics (circuits, microchips, capacitators, high-performance batteries), for hi capacity in electric and thermal conduction, chemical stability, sensors, filters.
Here are some fields of application in detail:
Integrated circuitsIntegrated circuits, as the word “integrated” suggests, can be integrated in a single system of a number of logical circuits; as Graphene can be worked at a molecular scale, within the range of a few nanometers (due to the structural properties described above), miniature logical circuits can be built in a single system, that having a good thermal dispersion and an excellent electrical conductivity would lead to the development of cutting-edge chips, with far more logical units compared to a common processor, with a lesser stress on the libraries (as we would have more logical circuits inside each chip); compared to the motorola 68k, that despite having 8 general use registries for variables and 8 for the libraries, based its efficiency on speed, leading to overheating problems, a graphene chip, having more pre-defined logics, would not use 8 libraries many times over, but will be capable of holding whole sets of libraries executing specific commands, thus heating less those materials. Heat problems will not be present in new circuits anyway, due to the efficient heat dispersion property of graphene.
Molecule Gas DetectionGraphene has been proposed as a material capable of storing hydrogen and, if deformed, develops “ridges” and hydrogen accumulates on such ridges. To release the gas it is necessary to eliminate Graphene deformation, so that hydrogen will no longer find “footholds” on the ridge. These observations are the result of the work carried out by Adanascelo team in Hokkaido, Japan.
IlluminationResearchers in Columbia Engineering developed a miniaturized light bulb, projecting light thanks to an incandescent Graphene filament, similar to what happens in common Tungsten light bulbs. To achieve this result, the scientists applied small metal electrodes on graphene strips invisible to the naked eye. When the circuit is fed electric light, the graphene heats up to 2500 °C emitting visible spectrum light. The discovery was published in Nature Nenotechnology, 2015.
De-saltingAn inverted osmosis experiment was carried out in the USA by researchers in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The peculiar molecular structure of graphene allows one to create the holes of any size on its surface. This allowed us to push through the water on one side and the other salts", the researchers explained to the magazine of the American Chemical Society. "The proof of this process of reverse osmosis is not anything new, but it required bulky equipment and high energy consumption. Through the graphene, instead, the desalting process may be carried out 1000 times faster and at an energy cost of zero".
3) commercial strategies Initially the sales platforms will be three: the open market in the OpenDman platform, Amazon, and eBay; the project will be publicized in the BitcoinTalk community.
Using the IIT certification and social networking we will attempt a contact with the industrial sector; a number of commercial partners have already been contacted, operating in the Graphene sector, and these have shown interest for our project. Due to privacy and caution principles, we cannot disclose their data until the accords are finalized.
4) sales objectivesThe primary sales target is monetizing the product being tested and, with the proceeds generated, provide an evaluation of the quality of the production process, and verifying the actual cost of the project to set up the company and set up a small workshop, with professional investment necessary for the proper operation of the facility and respecting the basic safety standards for the proper handling of any hazardous materials used.
E) PRODUCTION ASPECTSGraphene is obtained through a particular processing of graphite; graphite being an allotropic for of carbon characterized by being composed of a number of layers with little internal cohesion.
Through a process of homogenization in a solution consisting of dimethylketone and deionized water, graphite is exfoliated by forming the graphene in one mono-atomic layer, whose particular molecular organization characterized by hexagonal crystals confers special properties from the electrical, thermal, and quantum mechanical point of view. Subsequently, the solution is decanted and evaporated, obtaining graphene powder which, according to the size of the individual flakes, can be used directly or for the production of sheets, nanotubes and filaments, following treatments of a different nature.
F) DESCRIPTION OF THE FEASIBILITY OF THE ECONOMIC INITIATIVEThe innovative aspect of Graphene regards its main electrical conductivity, strength and flexibility; currently its properties are well known but still not used heavily, especially in the semiconductor industry where it promises an important evolution in the context of the smartphone display technology; currently the production is minimal and limited to a few individuals.
The cheap process of exfoliation, on the other hand, together with the market sale price up to 1/2000 compared to the standard cost of obtaining, makes the idea of the profit margin achievable once the low cost production process is perfected.
G) PROJECT ROADMAP (SUBJECT TO POSSIBLE CHANGES)OCTOBER 2016 - IIT CERTIFICATION OF THE GRAPHENE
OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2016 - TOKEN ETH RELEASE (*)
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2016 - TOKEN SUBSCRIPTION CLOSES
JANUARY 2017 - SETTING UP OF NEW LABS
- ACQUISITION OF MATERIAL FOR SCALE PRODUCTION
- COMPLETION OF BUY/SELL PORTAL
FEBRUARY 2017 - INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION STARTS (WILL LAST 6 MONTHS)
MARCH 2017 - PURCHASE OF TOKENS PREVIOUSLY RELEASED BY THE TEAM OPENS. (**)
(*) see following chapter.
(**) the buying and selling of tokens between private persons is allowed since the release.
H) TOKEN RELEASE OPTION (SUBJECT TO POSSIBLE CHANGES) 
All the funds collected with the sale of tokens will be used exclusively for the development and the marketing of the GrapheneX project.
In particular, the sale has the purpose of financing the society allowing for adequate investments in the right tools for developing on an industrial scale the production of Graphene with IIT certification purity.
The public sale of tokens will start on ....
The Participant, by buying a token on sale, becomes de facto theowner of a share of the company, and will be identified throughhis email address, and will be able to demonstrate the effective ownership of the shares trhough a blockchain transaction of the GrapheneX token.
The sale of the tokens will take place through the concession of SARs (***) shares, equivalent to 10% of the value of company. Each token will have anominal value of 1 ETH (Ethereum)
The value of 10% of the company will be defined based on the Ethereums collected during all the period of public sale, converted in USD within 10 days after the ending of the sale itself.
(***)
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sar.asp
