The Graphene-Info team attended this year's Graphene Week, organized by the Graphene Flagship in San Sebastian, Spain, 10-14 September 2018. The event attracted over 600 visitors from all over the world, and was extremely well organized.

While the talks and lectures were clearly scientifically-oriented, the commercial angle was also evident and many institutes and companies were there to show their recent product advancements. The Graphene Flagship's booth held a fascinating array of exhibits: graphene-enhanced retina and neural prosthesis (biomedical devices) by the ICN2 as a part of Braincom, Airbus' graphene composite for the leading edge of the tail of the Airbus A350, Nokia, Ericsson and AMO's graphene-based modulators and photodetectors for optical communications, a prosthetic robotic hand enhanced with graphene nerve sensors by the IIT, University of Cambridge's insole graphene-based pressure sensor and more.

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have developed a new fabrication technique to make capacitors enhanced with graphene. The resulting devices store a large amount of charge over a given surface area - an important metric for measuring the performance of a capacitor.

The new technique uses a 3D printer to construct a microscopic scaffold with porous graphene and then fills the structure with a kind of material called a pseudocapacitive gel, which is a kind of capacitor material that also behaves like a battery in some ways.

Versarien recently announced it will be collaborating with fire retardant coatings supplier Advanced Insulation to work on a graphene project.

The collaboration will focus on incorporating Versarien's Nanene few layer graphene nano-platelets into sub-sea insulation materials to improve tear resistance and reducing water absorption of these materials.

Researchers from Empa and the Adolphe Merkle Institute (AMI) in Fribourg have conducted studies on a 3D lung model to examine the behavior of graphene and graphene-like materials once they have been inhaled.

The lung model at Adolphe Merkle Institute (AMI)

Thanks to the 3-D lung model, the researchers have succeeded in simulating the actual conditions at the blood-air barrier and the impact of graphene on the lung tissue as realistically as possible without any tests on animals or humans. It is a cell model representing the lung alveoli. Conventional in vitro tests work with cell cultures from just one cell type the newly established lung model, on the other hand, bears three different cell types, which simulate the conditions inside the lung, namely alveolar epithelial cells and two kinds of immune cells macrophages and dendritic cells.

Following the news on Huawei's Mate 20 X phone that will use graphene film cooling technology for heat management purposes, we have now found out that the graphene producer for this Huawei phone will be China-based The Sixth Element Materials.

The Sixth Element Materials will be providing the graphene product, out of the Company's current 260 tons/year capacity. However, as Huawei graphene requirements is estimated to take up almost all of TSEM's available capacity, TSEM is working on increasing its capacity to 1000 tons/year, and intends to be on stream around the beginning 2020 (but the dates are not yet finalized).

Update: the graphene producer for this Huawei phone will be China-based The Sixth Element Materials. Click for more details.

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has launched Mate 20 series, which includes the Mate 20, Mate 20 Pro and Mate 20 X. In its Mate 20 X phone, the largest in the lineup with its 7.2-inch OLED display, Huawei uses “graphene film cooling technology” for heat management purposes.

Huawei states that its Mate 20 X features Huawei Supercool - "the world’s first liquid multi-dimensional cooling system with Vapor Chamber (VC) and Graphene Film used in smartphones". It reportedly conducts heat away fast, keeping the device cool even under heavy loads (as the device is touted as a gaming device).

Zenyatta Ventures has announced that it will be commencing a new research collaboration with the University of British Columbia (UBC)-Okanagan Campus and the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR, the German Aerospace Center) to investigate the potential use of Albany Graphite for graphene and graphene oxide in new composite materials.

Dr. Lukas Bichler, who will be leading the composite development project, said: UBC researchers have established a partnership with DLR, which seeks to provide unique educational and research opportunities for future engineers. Also, the partners bring together Canadian and European industry partners and allow effective technology transfer and rapid innovation.

Researchers affiliated with the Graphene Flagship have shown that integrated graphene-based photonic devices offer a unique solution for the next generation of optical communications. Researchers in the initiative have demonstrated how properties of graphene enable ultra-wide bandwidth communications coupled with low power consumption to radically change the way data is transmitted across the optical communications systems. This could make graphene-integrated devices the key ingredient in the evolution of 5G, the Internet-of-Things (IoT), and Industry 4.0.

"As conventional semiconductor technologies are approaching their physical limitations we need to explore entirely new technologies to realize our most ambitious visions of a future networked global society," explains Wolfgang Templ, Department Head of Transceiver Research at Nokia Bell Labs in Germany, which is a Graphene Flagship partner. "Graphene promises a significant step in performance of key components for optical and radio communications beyond the performance limits of today's conventional semiconductor-based component technologies." Paola Galli, Nokia IP and Optical networks Member of Technical Staff, agrees: "Graphene photonics offer a combination of advantages to become the game changer. We need to explore new materials to go beyond the limits of current technologies and meet the capacity needs of future networks."

Haydale has announced that it has been awarded a research and development grant from the Niche Vehicle Network to develop graphene-enhanced composite tooling and graphene-enhanced automotive body panels. Haydale is looking to reduce cycle times compared to existing tooling methods, as well as reduce weight and increase performance of component material.

A grant of £249,600, of which Haydale will receive £120,000, has been awarded to the consortium that Haydale leads, joined by Briggs Automotive Company (BAC) and Pentaxia. BAC is a British manufacturer of the Mono, the world's only road-legal, single seat super car. Pentaxia is a specialist in tooling design, machining (jigs & fixtures), and composite production.

Chinese coke company Baotailong New Materials has completed construction of a USD$9.6 million graphene production project in the north of the country and has launched trial-stage operations.

Baotailong completed all work on the facility located in its hometown of Qitaihe in northern Heilongjiang province at the end of last month, the firm said in a statement. The plant boasts an annual graphene output of 50 tons.