April 2014

Researchers from Rice University and Georgia Tech measured the fracture toughness of imperfect graphene for the first time and found it to be somewhat brittle. It turns out that graphene is really only as strong as its weakest link, and this can make a defected graphene substantially less strong than a perfect graphene.

According to the researchers, graphene follows the century-old Griffith theory that quantifies the useful strength of brittle materials. Imperfections in graphene drastically lessen its strength (which has an upper limit of about 100 gigapascals for a perfect graphene).

Haydale went public a few weeks ago, raising £6.6 ($11 million). Haydale's broker, Hume Capital Securities "temporarily" dropped all of its market-making activities on IPO day. Haydale's shares dropped 15% on the first day, and reports suggested that Haydale is considering to sue the broker.

Haydale's share price continued to slide, and today the price is about 122 pence - that's almost a 50% drop since the IPO. Today Haydale announced that it has "no current intention" of pursuing any legal action against its broker. The company is aware that those rumors may have caused the shares to drop further.

Researchers from UC Riverside discovered that graphene oxide nanoparticles are very mobile in lakes or streams - which means that they can cause negative environmental and health impacts. It turns out that in surface waters (where there is more organic material and less hardness), GO particles remain stable. But in groundwater, they tend to become less stable.

The researchers say that it is important to continue and study what happens when graphene materials get into the ground or water. They say that their lab is one of the few labs in the US that studies the environmental impact of graphene oxide.

Researchers from Italy's Institute of Organic Synthesis and Photoreactivity (ISOF) developed a new way to analyze the production process of 2D materials (such as BN or graphene). The new suggested process can be used for process control of 2D and composite materials produced via exfoliation.

The researchers explain that today there are many different methods and production processes used to produce graphene. But it is difficult today to compare the quality of these materials. The new suggested method may help to better understand these different materials and standardize their quality.

Researchers from George Washington University developed a carbon nanotube and graphene composite material based ultracapacitors that combines high performance with low cost. The specific capacitance of the device is three times higher compared to CNT-pure capacitors.

The researchers explain that the hybrid structure is useful because the graphene flakes provide high surface area and good in-plane conductivity, while the carbon nanotubes connect all of the structures to form a uniform network. In addition, the production method is simple, scalable and low cost.

On April 14, Haydale went public last week and raised £6.6 ($11 million). Now it is reported that Haydale is considering to sue its broker (Hume Capital Securities) after it "temporarily" dropped all of its market-making activities on IPO day.

At the open of the trading session on that day was 225 pence per share. Since the IPO the shares dropped over 28% (to 160 pence). On the first trading day the share dropped 15%.

Researchers from Korea's Sungkyunkwan developed new supercapacitors that can charge 1000 times faster than current graphene supercapacitors, while also having three times the energy capacity. To achieve this fast charge (and discharge) times,t he researchers used vertically aligning graphene oxide flakes.

The researchers created a graphene oxide film using a carbon nanotube, and then used cutting and heat treatment to develop the vertically-structured graphene electrodes. The researchers also inserted a VNT into the GO sheets and created regular patterned pores in the GO films. All this resulting in electrodes that is much faster than solid and vertically-structured graphene used in existing supercapacitors.

Researchers from China discovered that dragging a droplet of salt water on graphene generates a small voltage difference. The researchers found a linear relationship between the velocity and the generated electricity - the faster you drag the droplet, the higher the voltage.

The researchers explain that the charge distribution on the sides of the droplet is redistributed symmetrically on both sides when the droplet is not moving. But when you move it, the distribution becomes unbalanced and electrons are desorbed from the graphene at one end of the droplet and are adsorbed into the graphene at another end. This results in a large potential on one side of the droplet and generates a measurable voltage across its length.

Japan's National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) singed an agreement with China's Southeast University (SEU) to co-design graphene based materials as platinum alternatives for electro-catalysts and develop high quality fuel cell electrodes.

A young professor from SEU (who worked at NIMS earlier) aims to design unique molecular structures of electrodes and his aides at NIMS will examine the performance of the electrodes and fuel cell devices.

Thermene launched the second-generation Thermene product, which is a graphene-based high-performance thermal paste. Thermene is used to cool processor and video cards. The second generation product offers better performance (up to 12° Celsius cooler than the first generation) and is also cheaper by 25%.

The company says that the graphene-based paste handily beats the performance of Arctic Silver 5 and other standard thermal pastes by an average of 7° Celsius. The $14.99 product comes in a 3 mL syringe which improves the application experience, and one syringe of Thermene can be applied on up to 15 standard-size processors. The 2nd-gen Thermene is now shipping worldwide.