Page 25 - Bloomberg Businessweek - November 19, 2018

Bloomberg Businessweek The Year Ahead 2019 Luxury

▷ Four products that got a lot better with a little bit of graphene

● SOLES THAT LAST ● RACKETS THAT
LONGER SERVE STRAIGHTER

Running shoes are bun- Head, the Dutch-
dles of compromises American sport-
held together with ing goods company,
laces. Light or sturdy? has been one of the
Supportive or flexible? earliest adopters of
And in the soles, tough the material, introduc-
and durable or grippy ing graphene-infused
and fast-wearing? British skis and, in October, a
shoemaker Inov-8 has boot called the Nexo
combined Kevlar uppers LYT 130. This month
with graphene- enhanced the company added
soles to make them last the Graphene 360
50 percent longer. The Extreme series to its
company developed line of tennis rackets.
the soles in conjunc- In these, the material
tion with the University allows for a more
of Manchester’s National optimal weight distri-
Graphene Institute, bution and reduces
PHOTOGRAPHS BY PIPPA DRUMMOND FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK. PROP STYLIST: AJA COON. DATA: BLOOMBERG NEF, GRAPHENEA, ACS MATERIAL, GRAPHENE SUPERMARKET, GRAPHOS, GRAPHENE SHOP, PLASMACHEM
only 90 minutes away “ deformation” in the
from its headquarters in head of the racket for
England’s Lake District. better control.
● DRIVES THAT GO ● JACKETS THAT
FARTHER KEEP YOU WARMER

For Callaway Golf Co.’s One of the most prom-
new family of dual-core ising uses is in cold-
Chrome Soft golf balls, weather gear, thanks
graphene has been to the material’s ● Cost of graphene
blended into the usual almost magical abil- per kilogram
poly butadiene rubber ity to conduct heat.
material to form a thin- Vollebak’s graphene 79
ner outer core—a sort jacket is reversible;
of crash helmet—that one side contains

transfers the energy graphene, the other is
from the club swing as lightweight nylon. To
completely and effi- prove its conductive
ciently as possible into qualities, a customer
the springy inner core in the Gobi Desert
of the ball. For week- wrapped the jacket $650k
end golfers, they offer around his camel, and
the promise of lower once it warmed up, “he Solid form
driver spin and a higher put the jacket back on
launch angle for longer and was warm for the
distances off the tee. night,” Tidball says.
$15k
Powder additive
Earlier this year, London-based sports- Linea Rossa includes jackets that use nylon and
wear brand Vollebak released a $695 jacket graphene to help regulate body temperature. Ray-
that capitalizes on the material’s incredible Ban is already using it in its sunglasses.
ability to retain heat. “Graphene’s an arms race That’s just the beginning, says Bamidele
between the U.S., Europe, and Asia,” says Steve Ali, chief commercial officer of XG Sciences
Tidball, who founded the company with his Inc., a Lansing, Mich., company that supplies
twin brother, Nick. The production run of about the graphene found in noise-dampening prod-
1,000 pieces sold out in less than three days. ucts scheduled to appear under the hoods of
Growth will be driven by much bigger players Ford Mustangs and F-150 pickups in late 2018.
than niche sportswear startups. Although bend- “In 2016 we produced about 2 metric tons of
able tablets and fast-charging car batteries are a graphene,” he says. “In 2017 we produced
year or more off, more incremental innovations about 20 tons of graphene, and this year we’ll
are coming. Huawei Technologies Co.’s Mate 20x make over 100 tons. We could have scaled to
series marks the first time graphene has been a thousand.”
used in a smartphone. Mackenzie fly rods have The pace of getting these innovations
integrated the material for a better bend in their onto retail shelves is moving quite quickly,
poles, while tennis gear manufacturer Head has historically speaking. The transistor didn’t
released a line of graphene rackets for truer come along until 130 years after the discovery
serves. The fall collection of Prada SpA’s sporty of silicon. <BW> �Matthew Kronsberg