UK-based FlexEnable has recently joined the Graphene Flagship and announced its plans for this year, which will mainly focus on developing new use cases for graphene in flexible electronics including highly conductive interconnect lines and barrier films.

Starting April 2016, the Graphene Flagship is scheduled to move into its core project phase, where FlexEnable’s expertise in industrializing flexible electronics will be utilized to harness the potential of graphene and other 2d materials. FlexEnable’s Cambridge fab will play an important role in showcasing graphene’s performance over surfaces of all sizes, including large areas as well as in the development of advanced product concepts.

Graphenea recently announced its independence as it is no longer tied to its promoter and scientific founder, CIC nanoGUNE. This move was done five years after the company was set up and was agreed upon fron the start as one of the stipulations of the foundational agreement with Nanotechnology Investment Group SL.

After the signing of Graphenea's "declaration of independence", both parties acknowledge that the expectations raised five years ago have been met and that the mutual collaboration has been excellent. Graphenea will continue with the production and commercialization of graphene, and nanoGUNE will continue with its research on the electronic and optical properties of this nanomaterial. Thereby, both entities may continue to collaborate in future research projects. 

Researchers from DTU Nanotech and collaborators at DTU Danchip, DTU Energy, Columbia University USA and Aixtron Ltd, UK have found a greener, more sustainable way of producing graphene. Their method not only reduces the amount of copper needed for growth but also reuses the copper.

The scientists minimized the amount of copper needed for growth from 50 µm thick foils to 100 nm thick layers supported by silicon wafers. To transfer the graphene, they used a novel electrochemical method in a liquid electrolyte. This method involves oxygen from the atmosphere, dissolved in a liquid electrolyte in between the copper and graphene layer. By applying a reducing potential, the oxidised copper surface is changed back to copper without dissolving it, and at the same time releasing the graphene. This works well because graphene does not tend to stick to copper oxide and reducing the copper oxide results in a volume decrease which helps further to release the graphene from the catalyst surface.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School studied the extent to which graphene oxide is biocompatible, and discovered that it is not toxic to cells (up to a certain concentration). Graphene oxide may thus be suitable for use in medical devices and implants for next-generation biosensors, implantable electronics or even tissue engineering scaffolds.

In their tests, the scientists found that reducing the degree of graphene oxidation resulted in the material infiltrating and clearing cells faster. They also observed that after injection, the graphene oxide particles coalesced to form an implant-like material in the tested mice. The scientists' study showed that over the short term, the body responds to graphene oxide in much the same way it does to other biomaterial implants that are known to be safe.

The UK-based Applied Graphene Materials brought in independent coatings experts to conduct performance testing on graphene- reinforced polyurethane coatings and reported positive preliminary findings. 

While the test program is still ongoing, the initial results demonstrate that low loading levels of AGM's graphene nanoplatelets substantially enhance the scratch resistance and ultimate tensile strength of a polyurethane clearcoat, with minimal impact on transparency or colour.

Researchers at Beihang University in China developed new cathode materials for lithium-sulfur batteries, made from vertically aligned sulfurgraphene (S-G) nanowalls on electrically conductive substrates. 

These new cathodes are reported to allow fast diffusion of lithium ions and electrons and achieve an excellent capacity (of 1261 mAh g¹ in the first cycle, and over 1210 mAh g¹ after 120 cycles) and high-rate performance (more than 400 mAh g¹ at 8C, 13.36 A g¹). The scientists claim that these impressive figures position it as the best demonstrated rate performance for sulfur-graphene cathodes.

NanoXplore announced that it is producing Graphene Oxide in industrial quantities. The Graphene Oxide is being produced in the same 3 metric tonne per year facility used to manufacture NanoXplore's standard graphene grades and derivative products such as a unique graphite-graphene composite suitable for anodes in Li-ion batteries.

Graphene Oxide (GO) is similar to graphene but with significant amounts of oxygen introduced into the graphene structure. GO, unlike graphene, can be readily mixed in water which has led people to use GO in thin films, water-based paints and inks, and biomedical applications. GO is relatively simple to synthesize on a lab scale using a modified Hummers' method, but scale-up to industrial production is quite challenging and dangerous. This is because the Hummers' method uses strong oxidizing agents in a highly exothermic reaction which produces toxic and explosive gas. NanoXplore has developed a completely new and different approach to producing GO based upon its proprietary graphene production platform. This novel production process is completely safe and environmentally friendly and produces GO in volumes ranging from kilogram to tonne quantities.

This fascinating video about graphene and its potential for implementation in various applications (as well as Grafoid's Mesograf) was made by Grafoid. Enjoy!

Researchers from the ICFO, ICREA, MIT and UC Riverside, have now showed that a graphene-based photodetector converts absorbed light into an electrical voltage at an extremely high speed. The efficient conversion of light into electricity is crucial to various technologies, from cameras to solar cells. It can also play a part in data communication applications, since it allows information to be carried by light and converted into electrical information that can be processed in electrical circuits.

Graphene is known to be an excellent material for conversion of light to electrical signals, but it was unknown exactly how fast graphene responds to ultrashort flashes of light. The researchers developed a device capable of converting light into electricity in less than 50 femtoseconds (a twentieth of a millionth of a millionth of a second). Facilitated by graphene's nonlinear photo-thermoelectric response, the observation of femtosecond photodetection response times was enabled.

Sunvault Energy announced signing a letter of intent with U.S-based Edison Power Company to retail power within de-regulated power markets. The first market as part of the roll out strategy is planned to be the Alberta market, followed by other similar markets and markets that have time of use pricing.

Sunvault will be working closely with Edison to launch a new power retail program that will be unique in its approach and will benefit Alberta consumers greatly. Sunvault will work through its incubation company, Aboriginal Power Corp, for power sales within First Nations territories. Sunvault aims to supply Alberta with "green" energy using its graphene supercapacitor technology and e future to spread out to aditional areas. The company's services are planned to cost less than existing market providers, while offering the same kind of Green benefit to consumers.