Dr. Mutsuaki Murakami is a material researcher and engineer who developed various new materials and new devices by applying heat, electric current, and light to organic materials and realized their commercialization. What introduced in this book was the work of “heating organic matter to produce high quality graphite”, which has grown into the biggest business among those achievements.
Murakami was born in 1946. In 1970 he graduated from Ehime University Graduate School of Engineering, Department of Industrial Chemistry. In the same year, he joined Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (currently Panasonic corporation) started the life as a researcher and technology developer at Matsushita Research Institute of Tokyo (MRIT). In 1986, he received Ph.D. in Science from University of Tokyo. In 2001, he left Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. and joined Kaneka Corporation. Since 2005, he has also been an invited professor at the Center for Extreme Environmental Research and Technology, Osaka University.
In this book, I will discuss such ADVANCED GRAPHITE, and will explain why such advanced graphite is expected and what is being achieved now.
The carbon atoms that make up graphite have a bond pattern consisting of three σ-electrons and one π-electron, and the three σ-electrons extend in three directions at an angle of 120 ° to each other to form a stable hexagonal plane. Such a single graphite layer is called graphene, and as expected from this structure, such a framework is theoretically considered to be extremely strong and stable. Figure 0-1 shows a graphene structure formed by three σ-bonds of carbon atoms.
