July 2013

Graphite and Graphene are considered to be hydrophobic materials - which means that they repel water. However, according to a new research performed at the University of Pittsburgh, it turns out that those materials are actually hydrophilic - attract to water. They say that when graphene is exposed to air, a thin layer of hydrocarbon (a compound made entirely of hydrogen and carbon) contaminates its surface and makes it hydrophobic.

But graphene itself, without that layer is hydrophilic. The team confirmed this when they used heat to remove the layer. They say that past samples used by researchers around the world were probably always "contaminated" with hydrocarbon as the contamination happens quickly - within 10 minutes of exposing the graphene to air.

Researchers from Rice University managed to create long graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) that are very thin - less than 10 nanometers wide. This lithography process, discovered by chance, uses water to act as a mask.

The researchers found out that water gathers at the wedge between the raised lithography pattern and the graphene surface - and that's the place where the ribbons are formed. This water formation is called a meniscus and it is created when the surface tension of a liquid causes it to curve. The meniscus mask protects a tiny ribbon of graphene from being etched away when the pattern is removed.

IBM researchers have developed a graphene-based infrared detector, driven by intrinsic plasmons. This new design proved to be much more photo-responsive compared to non-plasmonic graphene detectors.

The researchers used CVD to grow graphene on copper foil. The copper was etched away and the graphene sheet was transferred to a silicon/silicon-oxide chip. The researchers patterned graphene ribbons (widths of 80 to 200 nm).

Researchers from Korea's Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) developed a simple and low-cost way to dope graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) with Nitrogen. These new materials may prove useful for dye-sensitized solar cells and fuel cells.

The researchers used dry ball-milling and they say that this is an efficient way to chemically modify the graphene flakes. This is more useful than current ways (most commonly the Harber-Bosch process, which requires extreme pressure and temperature conditions).

Researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) discovered that protein-coated graphene oxide can be used to create efficient anti-bacteria agents. The GO sheets were used as a template to guide silver (or Au@Ag core-shell particles, to be exact) into a 2D array. In this configuration, the silver is much more efficient that with with individual nanoparticles and silver ions.

Mechanical studies showed strong adhesion of the 2D Au@Ag nano-assembly on the cell surface, which cause an aggregation and cellular lysis of the bacteria. The increased local concentration of silver around the bacteria and the "polyvalent" nanoparticle-bacterium interaction were both critical.

Bluestone Global Tech released a new video showing a test of their Gratom-O product (a graphene film on PET). This flexible film's physical integrity and high conductivity remain completely in tact, even after 25,000 bending cycles:

Gratam-O is a large-area CVD graphene film on PET (it can also be transferred to customized substrates). It features low sheet resistance and high optical transmittance (over 97%).

Researchers from Rice University managed to synthesize graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) on metal from the bottom up (atom by atom). They call these Graphene onion rings and you can see why from the image below:

The researchers explain that usually, when growing graphene using CVD, the deposition starts as one atom attach it self to a speck of dust or a bump on the metal substrate. The other atoms join in (this is called nucleation) to join the familiar graphene pattern. This time the researchers used a high pressure hyrdogen-rich environment, and this produced the first rings. In this case, the entire edge of the first ring becomes a nucleation site and a new sheet starts under the first graphene sheet.

China's Chongqing Morsh Technology is building a production line in Chongqing that will be used to produce 15" single-layer graphene films. They hope to start production by March 2014, and they already signed an agreement with Guangdong Zhengyang, an OGS maker to produce 10 million graphene based transparent conducting films (TCFs) in a year for the next five years. These films will be used to produce touch panels for mobile devices.

Chongqing Morsh was established by the Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology. The company is buying graphene from Ningbo Morsh Technology.

Researchers from Singapore's A*STAR Institute developed a new graphene ribbons (GNRs) based magnetic field-effect transistor (it responds to changes in a magnetic field).

The basic idea is to use two armchair-edged GNRs joined end to end. One of the ribbons acts as a metallic conductor while the other one (which is wider) acts as a semiconductor. The existence of a magnetic field makes this device conductive.

The University of Manchester and the University of Liverpool launched a new consortium to develop new graphene-based energy storage devices. The UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) granted £3.3 million ($5 million) to the consortium.

The University of Manchester will build a new grid-scale energy storage test facility, that will also be made available to industrial partners. This will allow energy storage systems to be fully tested before widespread deployment. The new facility will be operational by 2014.