Haydale recently shared updates on the passing financial year and on the prospects for the Group. The total income for the financial year ended 30 June 2017 is reportedly expected to be in line with current market expectations, which represents a doubling when compared with the prior financial year.

According to Haydale, the cash balance at 30 June 2017 stood at approximately £2.0 million (31 December 2016: £1.1 million). At the year's end, the Group's order book, being product sales orders and consulting contracts to be fulfilled over the next 3.5 years, stood at approximately £5.4 million, which is at record levels for Haydale and provides good visibility on the Group's future income.

First Graphite recently announced the receipt of government approvals for its planned commercial graphene production facility, which is aimed at being operational in Q4 of 2017. FGR said that the production facility will be funded from existing cash balances.

Initial capacity will reportedly be in the order of 20-25 tonnes per annum of saleable graphene, based on a single shift operation, five days per week. Multiple shifts could escalate production rates to globally significant levels in the event suitable sales contracts are negotiated.

Researchers at IMM-CNR (Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems of the National Research Council), in collaboration with the CNRS, the University of Bordeaux and the University of Montpellier, have developed a new graphene production technique that uses degassed water, instead of surfactants to prevent graphene flakes from aggregating.

The new method enables graphene production in a convenient, easy and environmentally friendly way. The technique reportedly yields large amounts of single-layer graphene. The teams started with graphite, exfoliated under inert atmosphere in tetrahydrofuran, an organic solvent. The solution is then oxidized and transferred to degassed water. The absence of gases in the water prevents the single layers of graphene from aggregating and settling at the bottom, leaving the flakes dispersed in the solution.

First Graphite, the Australia-based graphite miner and graphene producer, recently announced that it has become a Tier 1 partner to the Australian Research Council Research Hub for Graphene Enabled Industry Transformation (ARC Graphene Research Hub).

The ARC Graphene Research HUB aims to provide knowledge, innovative research and commercial development of graphene technologies across broad areas. Under the Terms of the ARC Hub agreement FGR will focus on the areas of fire retardants, where the Company already has global licence to exploit the technology, development of conductive graphene coatings and development of graphene polymer composites.

Graphenea recently announced the opening of a new graphene oxide (GO) pilot plant with 1 tonne per annum production capacity. The new plant is meant to significantly increase production capacity for Graphenea (which is already producing GO dispersions, powders, and films), while also allowing for higher quality and batch-to-batch reproducibility. The plant reportedly houses in-line quality control of each individual batch.

Graphenea stated that although the production volume is large, the new plant can accommodate custom requirements regarding flake size, oxygen levels, and other specifications. Orders for multi-kilogram quantities will be processed with short delivery times. The production capacity is multiplied by 20 times compared to capabilities before the pilot plant, allowing for development and industrial scale supplies.

Researchers from Tsinghua University in China have designed a low-cost energy storage device using a TiO2-assisted UV reduction of sandwiched graphene components. The sandwich structure consists of two active layers of reduced graphene oxide hybridized with TiO2, with a graphene oxide separator (rGO-TiO2/rGO/rGO-TiO2). In the device, the separator layer also acts as a reservoir for the electrolyte, which affects ion diffusion—a known problem for layered membrane devices—and affects both the capacity and rate performance.

The team explained that a step-by-step vacuum filtration process is used to form the membrane structure, and the amount of graphene oxide used in the filtration solutions can be adjusted to precisely tune the thickness of each layer. Irradiation of the dried membrane with UV light then reduces the graphene oxide to rGO with assistance from the TiO2.

Group NanoXplore has recently announced plans to become a public company, with a business strategy of acquiring companies in order to introduce graphene to the products. NanoXplore says it is on track to offer graphene at $10/kg. We recently discussed this goal with the company’s CEO, Dr. Soroush Nazarpour.

Dr. Soroush explains that at the simplest level, commercialization of graphene requires either developing new applications and products, or replacing existing products. There are many examples of graphene companies pursuing each of these approaches. NanoXplore is one company targeting existing products. They plan to dramatically reduce the price of graphene so that it can compete with carbon black.

A research team from the South Korean Sungkyunkwan University has developed a technology that can control graphene electronic device through static electricity. The team has developed a gate that utilizes the graphene electrostatic phenomenon; Static electricity that occurs from friction is trapped inside of a lower board and serves as a gate. Unlike current materials, formation, modification, and elimination are said to be possible with this technology.

The team aims to make the process that forms a gate which will control current from an electronic device unnecessary. As a result, integration with high density should be possible and it is expected that this technology will reduce cost and time to manufacture electronic devices.

Researchers at the India Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, have developed a new graphene, silver and pyyrole nanocomposite material suitable for making supercapacitors.

The nanomaterial was made of a graphene sheet onto which silver nanoparticles, each about 15-20 nanometers wide, had been embedded uniformly. The material was shown to have a high specific capacitance of 472 farad per gram at a current density of 0.5 amperes per gram. It could retain 95% of its capacitance after 1,000 consecutive charge-discharge cycles.

An international group of researchers from Saudi Arabia, China and the US have developed a graphene-bacterial cellulose nanofiber (GC/BCN) hybrid sensor to detect alcohol (ethanol) with great efficiency. The sensor was described as flexible, transparent, highly sensitive and with an excellent alcohol recognition performance. Electrical tests in different liquid environments were performed, with remarkable results.

The researchers created a composite thin film composed of graphene and bacterial cellulose nanofibers. In this material, the bacterial cellulose nanofibres act as the host and the graphene as the filler material. Due to its excellent conductive properties, it was reported that graphene does not require the addition of a conductive filler material, unlike many composites. The Researchers constructed the composite using a combination of wet chemical, blending, sonication (Cole-Parmer), centrifugal (Centrifuge 5810, Eppendorf), dialysis and sputtering (Equipment Support Co) methods.