December 2016

Graphene Nanochem received a contract order for its Platdrill fluid in the shale gas market in China worth about $360,000. The order pertains to 4,000 barrels of PlatDrill, a smart fluid that speeds the drilling and quality of shale gas as well proving environmental and economic benefits.

The contract is for servicing two wells in Changning in the southwest of the country, an area where 300 shale gas wells are expected to be drilled over the next five years.

2016 will soon be over - and it was an eventful year for the graphene industry. While we see more graphene-based products continue to enter the market, including some graphene-enhanced sensors and energy related applications, it seems that on the whole the market is now waiting for graphene to prove its potential.

Here are the top 10 stories posted on Graphene-Info in 2016, ranked by popularity (i.e. how many people read the story):

• Graphenano and Grabat launch graphene-based batteries (Feb 8)
• Dongxu unveils an impressive graphene-enhanced battery (Jul 10)
• IDtechEx predicts that the graphene market will reach nearly $220 million by 2026 (Mar 14)
• Graphene-enhanced film shuts down li-ion batteries before overheating and restarts upon cooling (Jan 12)
• Xefro's graphene-based heating system image under trials, ECL to supply the electronics (Feb 10)
• Graphene Security unveils graphene-based RFID tags at MWC 2016 (Mar 2)
• Graphene-enhanced solar cells use rain to produce electricity (Apr 7)
• Deloitte & Touche sees a bright future for graphene, but it might take a while... (Jan 19)
• Graphene impressions from the Mobile World Summit (Feb 29)
• Graphene composite may help keep aircraft wings ice-free (Jan 26)

Graphene Nanochem announced that the company arranged a loan note subscription agreement with Darwin Capital Ltd, to raise up to £2.5 million. This load finalizes the company's restructuring that it announced in April 2016, and the company's shares are set to resume trading at the UK's AIM stock exchange (the trading halted on June 28th 2016).

As part of the re-organization plans, Graphene Nanochem will dispose of its platinum subsidiaries to focus on nanofluids (oil field chemicals), water treatment and enhanced building materials.

Wuxi JCNO Materials, a company located in the Wuxi Graphene Industry Zone in China, has created a graphene-based electrostatic speaker. The speakers are reportedly constructed using graphene resin composite materials, able to produce medium and low bass sounds that conventional metal resin compounds cannot reach. The graphene speaker is also said to be simpler, longer-lasting and cheaper to produce than traditional technology.

Electrostatic speakers sound by vibrating the diaphragm before and after with the action of electrostatic force. It can capture the extremely small changes in the music signal to fully show the nuances of the music. This kind of speaker has already been used in applications like cars, theaters and exhibitions.

CealTech recently announced its new laboratories and facilities, and the Norway-based pure PE-CVD graphene producer will begin graphene production in March 2017. CealTech now announced that it will offer pre-booking and sales in late January on its web site.

The company also released the promotion video you see below.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have shown an interfacing system that can differentiate a single cancerous cell from a normal cell using graphene, hopefully opening the door to developing a simple, noninvasive tool for early cancer diagnosis.

The team explains that this graphene system is able to detect the level of activity of an interfaced cell. The cell's interface with graphene rearranges the charge distribution in graphene, which modifies the energy of atomic vibration as detected by Raman spectroscopy. The atomic vibration energy in graphene's structure differs depending on whether it's in contact with a cancer cell or a normal cell, because the cancer cell's hyperactivity leads to a higher negative charge on its surface and the release of more protons.

Versarien announced an agreement with Fern Plastic Products to manufacture injection moulded products using graphene-enhanced polyaryletherketone (PAEK) materials. The agreement with Fern Plastics follows the agreement with Scafell Organics announced earlier this month.

The plan is for Versarien to utilize Fern Plastics' manufacturing facilities and expertise to produce injection moulded products using graphene-enhanced PAEK materials produced through Versarien's collaboration with Scafell.

2016 will soon come to an end, and we are getting ready to summarize this exciting year in the graphene industry. One year ago we posted the top top graphene stories in 2015, and you can see the list below again. Interestingly, the most popular stories in 2015 were about graphene's potential for energy storage - mainly supercapacitors and batteries.

1. Sunvault Energy and Edison Power present a 10,000 Farad graphene supercapacitor
2. Sunvault's graphene-based supercapacitor declared to someday replace Lithium-ion batteries and compete with Tesla's battery aspirations
3. Stanford scientists make graphene-aluminum battery that charges quickly and lasts over 7,000 cycles
4. Graphene 3D Lab starts selling conductive graphene filament for 3D printing
5. Will Tesla's Roadster 3.0 use a graphene-enhanced battery?
6. Berkeley scientists design graphene-based loudspeakers and microphones
7. World's first commercial graphene-based supercapacitor chosen for use in spacecraft
8. IDTechEx's analyst explains his views on the graphene market
9. Scientists design a large-scale roll-to-roll graphene manufacturing process
10. Graphene-enhanced guitar shown at Graphene Live!

Below you can see 2015's top 10 graphene applications, ranked by the number of posts written about them. Back then we were a bit surprised to see graphene sensors at #2 - but recently companies have actually started to commercialize graphene sensors (see here and here) and this is a very promising field.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has reportedly awarded a $1.3 million grant to a team from the University of Central Florida (UCF) to fund the development of a graphene-enhanced next-generation infrared detector that could be used in fields like night vision, meteorology, and space exploration.

The UCF team is working on an entirely new type of detector that relies on graphene. The researchers plan to use graphene to make an infrared detector that is small, portable, doesn't need to be cooled, and produces high-resolution images. Unlike current technologies, which can detect only one band of light, the next-gen detector would be tunable and able to see a range of bands.

Versarien, the advanced materials group, has signed an agreement with polymer chemical producer Scafell Organics to develop graphene-enhanced polyaryletherketone materials (PAEKs). These materials are a family of semi-crystalline thermoplastics with high-temperature stability and high mechanical strength, used in the automotive and aerospace industries.

Versarien reportedly plans to utilize Scafell’s facilities and production expertise to produce graphene enhanced PAEK materials using Versarien supplied graphene nano platelets. It is hoped that these graphene enhanced materials will be available for sale by Versarien through its sales team as well as Scafell’s customers.