Around the time that UCAR Carbon Co. was picking up the pieces from a devastating price-fixing scandal, the company -- and the rest of the world, for that matter -- started seeing untapped possibilities for graphite materials.

"With hindsight, you can look back and see a clear uptick in patenting, in technical papers and publications [on the subject of graphite] around the late 1990s and early 2000s," says Lionel Batty, vice president of research and development for GrafTech International Ltd.

UCAR Carbon, which changed its named to GrafTech in 2002, derives most of its revenues from manufacturing graphite electrodes and other graphite and carbon materials for steelmaking.

But in recent years, the Union Carbide spin-off has been developing new applications -- and finding new customers -- for its graphite materials.

Batty: Graphite has a play in just about every kind of advanced energy.

For example, because graphite is four or five times more thermally conductive than copper -- and about one-fourth the weight -- thin films of the material are being used to disperse heat in smart phones, laptops, flat-panel TVs and LED lights.

GrafTech's materials also can be found in solar panels and PEM fuel cells used to power fork trucks and other vehicles.

The Parma, Ohio-based company is working with automakers to find ways to use graphite in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles as well, Batty says.

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