Gnanomat, a Spain-based company that designs and develops graphene-based nanomaterials for energy storage devices, recently opened new laboratories and pilot plant.

The construction and commissioning of the pilot plant will allow the scaling of its promising graphene-based nanomaterials on a pre-industrial scale. The plant will allow Gnanomat to produce up to 100 kilos of its product, a hybrid between GNP and metallic oxides, per year.

Versarien recently announced that it has reached an agreement with an Asia-headquartered "global textiles and apparel manufacturer", which will have both companies collaborating to incorporate graphene into fabrics. The partner remains unnamed , but it was said that it designs, develops, and manufactures a range of different garments for well-known apparel brands globally.

Using graphene ink technology (developed by the Versarien's subsidiary Cambridge Graphene), the collaboration will involve the incorporation of graphene into textiles via yarns and fabric finishes, with the aim of enhancing the fabric properties so that they meet the requirements of some key application areas that the partner has identified.

First Graphene has provided an update on its work with the University of Adelaide (UoA) on graphene for enhancement of industrial building products. The UoA is testing FGR graphene, with the aim of making smart cement with conductive graphene flakes with aims to address the concerns of cracking and corrosion and provide conductivity for better monitoring of the health of concrete structures.

According to FGR, the first test results indicate the addition of 0.03% standard graphene is the optimal quantity of graphene from the test conducted to date, showing a 22 - 23 % increase in compressive and tensile strength, respectively. The addition of more standard graphene does not reportedly increase or decrease the strength of the concrete material when compared to the control in this test work.

MITO Material Solutions has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant of $224,988 to develop a graphene oxide-based nano-additive that doubles the interlaminar toughness of composite materials utilized in aerospace, recreation, and automotive industries.

The main focus of this project is the development of new hybrid nanofillers based on Graphene Oxide (GO) and Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane (POSS). These nanofillers can be added to epoxy/vinyl ester/polyester matrices through a "Master Batch" process to enhance the interlaminar fracture toughness of commercial composites.

Researchers from Rice University have discovered that nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes or modified graphene nanoribbons could potentially replace platinum, one of the most expensive facets in fuel cells, for performing fast oxygen reduction—a crucial reaction that transforms chemical energy into electricity.

The researchers used computer simulations to see how carbon nanomaterials can be improved for fuel-cell cathodes and discovered the atom-level mechanisms by which doped nanomaterials catalyze oxygen reduction reactions. The simulations also revealed why graphene nanoribbons and carbon nanotubes modified with nitrogen and/or boron are so sluggish and how they can be improved.

Two men leading a Hong-Kong company that raised money for (claimed) development of graphene-based chargers for mobile devices have recently been arrested as the entire operation seems to be a scam. They organized fundraising events in Hong Kong, Macau and on the mainland, and lured people to "invest" in the company's project. To become part of the fundraising, investors had to put in at least US$10,000 (HK$78,000). The name of the company remains undisclosed at the moment.

Similarly to the Xefro incidence, this is another sad example of wrongful exploitation of graphene's potential and promise. Cases like these cast shadows on the entire field, which is otherwise filled with honest, hard-working men and women that work tirelessly to develop actual graphene applications. Hopefully these cases will cease to occur as real graphene applications continue to emerge.

Today we published new versions of all our graphene market reports. Graphene-Info provides comprehensive niche graphene market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about these niche markets. The reports are now updated to January 2018.

The Graphene Batteries Market Report:

• The advantages using graphene batteries
• The different ways graphene can be used in batteries
• Various types of graphene materials
• What's on the market today
• Detailed specifications of some graphene-enhanced anode material
• Personal contact details into most graphene developers

The report package provides a good introduction to the graphene battery - present and future. It includes a list of all graphene companies involved with batteries and gives detailed specifications of some graphene-enhanced anode materials and contact details into most graphene developers. Read more here!

Iowa State University researchers have created a new, low-cost, easily produced, graphene-based sensors-on-tape that can be attached to plants to provide data that was previously very hard to collect. This can help farmers to breed plants that are more efficient in using water, for example, but also open new possibilities for creating new sensors for biomedical diagnostics, for checking the structural integrity of buildings, monitoring the environment and, after appropriate modifications, for testing crops for diseases or pesticides.

The tiny graphene sensors that can be taped to plants, and the researchers have dubbed it a plant tattoo sensor. The plant sensors have been successfully tested in lab and pilot field experiments. The graphene-on-tape technology in this study has also been used to produce wearable strain and pressure sensors, including sensors built into a smart glove that measures hand movements.

Researchers from the Pierre Aigrain Laboratory in the ENS Physics department in Paris, France, have discovered a new cooling mechanism for electronic components made of graphene deposited on boron nitride. The efficiency of this mechanism reportedly allowed the team to reach electric intensities at the intrinsic limit of the laws of conduction.

Current-voltage (left) and temperature-voltage (right) characteristics of a graphene on boron nitride transistor. The transistor effect is visible by modulation of the current as a function of the gate voltage in the Zener-Klein tunnel transport regime.

Heat dissipation is vital in order to prevent deterioration or destruction of electronic components. The laws of physics dictate that increasing the density of components on a chipset implies increasing dissipation and thus heat. Nowadays, with the advances in 2D material devices, this question becomes particularly critical since components are required to be one atom thick. By producing a graphene-based transistor deposited on a boron nitride substrate, the team demonstrated a new cooling mechanism 10 times more efficient than basic heat diffusion. This new mechanism, which exploits the two-dimensional nature of the materials opens a "thermal bridge" between the graphene sheet and the substrate.

Following Dotz Nano's MoU with Colorplastic to develop GQDs-enhanced polymers and surface modificants in October 2017, the Company announced its first major purchasing agreement for the sale of GQDs with Colorplastic.

According to the said agreement, Colorplastic agreed to purchase $300,000 USD of GQDs per annum. The price per kg is not disclosed in order to protect Dotz Nano's pricing policy. Colorplastic’s purchase of GQDs is conditional on it receiving specific purchase orders for GQD enhanced polymers and plastics from its customers.