Reduced graphene oxide is a promising way to produce graphene materials, but currently used methods use harsh chemicals and are not environmentally friendly. A possible green method is photoreduction, but the dynamics behind this reduction aren't fully understood.

Now researchers from Germany's Max Planck Institute demonstrate and measure the ultrafast (picosecond) ultimate and fundamental time scale of graphene oxide photoreduction. The researchers explain that their research demonstrates the nature and fundamental timescale of GO reduction in water by UV irradiation.

In early 2013, HEAD announced their new range of graphene tennis rackets, the YouTek Graphene Speed series. These rackets are now shipping, ranging from $170 to $286 (with some cheaper racket for kids). A few days ago the editors of Popular Science, the world’s largest science and technology magazine, have named HEAD’s racket a 2013 recipient of the publication’s Best of What’s New Award in the recreation category.

HEAD explains that the rackets are constructed with graphene, which enables a redistribution of weight from the racket shaft to the grip and head, which in turn allows players to generate more kinetic energy when they hit the ball.

The EU launched a new project called GLADIATOR (Graphene Layers: Production, Characterization and Integration) that aims to improve the quality and size of CVD graphene sheets and reduce the production cost.

GLADIATOR directly targets the transparent electrodes market and will demonstrate that ITO can be matched on performance (over 90% transparency and a resistance of less than 10 W/sq) and cost (under 30 €/m²). During the project, they will produce ultraviolet organic photodiodes and large area flexible OLEDs.

Researchers from Korea's Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in Korea developed high-performance supercapacitors based on graphene. They say these capacitors can store almost as much energy as a Li-Ion battery and can charge/discharge in seconds. They also last for many tens of thousands of charging cycles.

The researchers use a highly porous graphene that has a huge internal surface area. To fabricate this material they reduced graphene oxide with hydrazine in water agitated with ultrasound. This results in a graphene powder that they then packed into a cell shaped like a cell and dried it at 140 degrees Celsius under pressure for five hour. The material was used as an electrode.

Researchers from Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University developed a new low-cost and scalable method to pattern graphene on 3D surfaces. This could enable the use of graphene conductors on flexible or curved substrates. Researchers from Notherwestern University now seek to extend this work by producing complete circuits on curved surfaces.

The method starts by ink-jet printing a layer of aluminum chloride on a copper foil. This pattern is used as a template for graphene CVD growth. In the next step, a polymer membrane is added which supports the graphene when the aluminum chloride is removed. The graphene can be transferred to the desired surface.

The University of Manchester is launching the second Eli and Britt Harari Graphene Enterprise Award competition. This is a £50,000 annual award to help establish new enterprises in graphene at The University of Manchester.

Current students and recent graduates can submit a business plan for the development of a new graphene enterprise. It is open to both individuals and teams (up to six persons, and at least 50% of them must be students and/or graduates).

Xolve named a new CEO - Joe Beatty. Joe will lead Xolve's next financing round as the company aims to develop, manufacture, and deliver graphene and other nanochemistry products to their customers. Xolve is focusing on products for use in high-end plastics, composites and energy storage

Back in 2010 Xolve raised $2 million. The company commercializes technology that enables simple room temperature processing of graphene and other nanoparticle composites, solutions and coatings. You can read an interesting interview with the company's R&D VP here.

Researchers from UC Berkeley, Florida International University (FIU) and the Georgia Institute of Technology demonstrated for the first time the presence of magnetic properties in graphene nanostructures at room temperature. Magnetic graphene could have potential applications in information processing, medicine and Spintronics. 

To achieve this they functionalized the graphene with nitrophenyl. The researchers thus confirmed the presence of magnetic order in nanoparticle-functionalized graphene. The graphene was epitaxially grown at Georgia Tech, chemically functionalized at UC Riverside and studied at FIU and UC Berkeley.

The University of Cambridge released (this was towards the end of August 2013, but I just found it now) a video showing sample transparent graphene electrodes based device prototypes:

In the video you can see a graphene touch panel used in a simple digital piano application, and also a flexible transparent display. The keyboard device is simple - when you touch the graphene electrode, the electrical charge changes which is detected by a simple electronic circuit-board connected to a speaker.

IBM researchers developed a new process that can be used to fabricate single-oriented, single-layer graphene at wafer-scale. The process uses two exfoliation stages, and the researchers managed to made graphene wafers 4" in size. The researchers believe that in the future graphene will replace silicon as a transistor technology (they quote Nature's estimate of 2021) - and graphene based transistors will achieve speeds of 1 Thz over the next decade.

This process uses the idea that every element in the periodic table has a different adhesion (atomic binding energy) to graphene. They start by growing graphene on a silicon carbide (SiC) substrate, and then separate the graphene from the SiC by using a stressed nickel layer. Then they perform a second exfoliation that removes any graphene in excess of a single-layer by using a thin gold layer thus leaving only single-layer, single-oriented graphene.