New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) awarded $2 million for energy storage projects. They support eight companies - each will receive $250,000. Two of these projects are based on graphene.

Graphene devices will develop powerful graphene-based supercapacitors with three times the energy density of current commercial devices at the same cost. Custom Electronics Inc aims to develop an electrolytic graphene capacitor to back up the electricity grid during power shortages, voltage spikes, and momentary electricity interruptions.

Rice University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced a $2.7 million, five-year cooperative research agreement to study how nanoparticles particularly fullerenes (aka buckyballs), nanotubes and graphene operate and interact with other materials at the molecular, even atomic, scale. The goal is to enable the manufacture of high-end products that incorporate carbon-based nanomaterials for enhanced optical, electrical, mechanical and thermal properties.

XG Sciences announced today that the US Department of Energy (DOE) selected the company to develop high-energy Lithium-ion battery materials for use in extended range electric vehicle applications. XG-Sciences developed a silicon-graphene nanocomposite anode material (based on their xGnP graphene nanoplatelets and XG Leaf graphene sheets) that demonstrated significant increases in energy storage capacity over traditional graphite.

The DOE targets 600 mAh/g reversible anode capacity and 1000 cycle life in 250 mAh cells. XG Sciences will collaborate on this project with battery maker LG Chem Power and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Graphene is a new wonder material - with a lot of research from both the academia and commercial companies, and with upcoming commercialization of products. Graphene research actually began in 1859, with the term graphene coined in 1962.

We're happy to launch a new section on Graphene-Info with a detailed graphene history - from the early discoveries to highlights from recent research and commercial activities.

Scientists from the University of Manchester, including Nobel prize-winner Professor Andre Geim constructed a multi-layer graphene structure made by placing individual sheets one on top of the other. This 'cake' like structure behaves like a nanoscale electric transformer - which could be used to make new electronic transistors and photonic detector devices.

In the new device, electrons moving in one metallic layer pull electrons in the second metallic layer by using their local electric fields. The layers are only separated by a tiny (few interatomic) distance - much shorter than anything done before. To achieve this structure they used just four atomic layers of boron nitride to serve as an electric insulator.

Scientists from the University of Alberta and the National Research Council of Canada developed a new material, a 3D sponge-like graphene that can be used to make supercapacitor electrodes. The big advantage o f this new material is a high energy density at ultra high power densities - 7.1 Wh/kg at 48,000 W/kg. This could lead towards supercapacitors that can compete with Li-Ion batteries.

The new material was synthesized the sponge-like graphene out of multiwalled carbon nanotubes and cobalt phthalocyanine (PC) molecules that attach to nucleation sites in the nanotube "skeleton." Heating the material in a microwave for 20 minutes yielded graphite - which was then quenched with ice water to transform it into graphene flakes.

Researchers from the Beijing Institute of Technology created the lightest graphene framework to date - which is also fire resistant and has record-breaking adsorption and capacitance. The new materials has a density of 2.1mg/cm³ - not the lightest material ever, but the lightest one made from graphene. To develop the new material, the researchers doped graphene with nitrogen by treating graphene oxide with pyrrole an aromatic, nitrogen-containing compound in a steam oven. This creates a large gel framework - which was later frozen dry and annealed at high temperature.

The material is fire resistant (see video above) and is able to withstand repeated burning without suffering any structural damage. It's also the most absorbent carbon-based material (see video below), able to adsorb between 200 and 600 times its own weight of oil or other non-polar liquids. See video below.

The American Chemical Society (ACS) released a nice new video discussing graphene - its properties and future applications:

Angstron Materials developed a new graphene-modified lubricant, and has been awarded a US patent for the material (US #8,222,190). The material is made by dispersing single-layer nano graphene platelets (NGPs) at a weight ratio of 0.001% to 60% (based on total fluid weight) in a fluid containing a petroleum or synthetic oil.

Angstron has demonstrated the ability of the new lubricant to provide improved thermal conductivity and friction reduction. These characteristics help extend wear performance. In addition to exceptional viscosity stability, the thermal conductivity values for the NGP-modified fluid are the highest on record for fluid materials.

Nobel Prize-winner (together with Andre Geim) Professor and Kostya Novoselov Professor Volodya Falko from Lancaster University have released a graphene roadmap. The roadmap discusses the different possible applications for graphene and also the different ways to produce the material.

The authors says that the first key application is conductors for touch-screen displays (replacing ITO), where they expect can be commercialized within 3-5 years. They also see rollable e-paper displays soon - prototypes could appear in 2015. Come 2020, we can expect graphene-based devices such as photo-detectors, wireless communications and THz generators. Replacing silicon and delivering anti-cancer drugs are interesting applications too - but these will only be possible at around 2030.