July 2019

Directa Plus recently announced that it has been awarded a supply and service contract from an unnamed international oil and gas company. The contract will involve treating and recovering crude oil from producing wells onshore across Europe.

Specifically, Directa Plus will be paid EUR150,000 to use its graphene-based Grafysorber technology, a product that is used to treat water contaminated by hydrocarbons, to treat several thousand cubic meters of sludges and by-products over the next six months.

Two teams from the University of Manchester are the winners of a £70,000 prize for novel applications of graphene. Both teams are addressing key societal challenges on future energy and food security: seeking breakthroughs by using 2D materials to produce hydrogen to generate energy, and by designing polymer hydrogels to increase food production.

The Eli and Britt Harari Enterprise Award, in association with Nobel Laureate Sir Andre Geim, is awarded each year to help commercialize graphene concepts from Manchester University students, researchers and graduates. The prize is supported by former Manchester physics student, Dr. Eli Harari, founder of global flash-memory giant, SanDisk

Versarien recently shared it has signed a letter of intent with its textile collaboration partner to launch sportswear containing Versarien's graphene ink technology.

Versarien said the letter is non-binding, covering the intention of Versarien and the undisclosed Asia-headquartered company partner to "enter into a formal commercial relationship regarding an initial launch of high performance sportswear".

A way to cut CO₂ levels, produced from burning fossil fuels and released into the atmosphere, is through carbon capture, a chemical technique that removes CO₂ from emissions ("postcombustion"). The captured CO₂ can then be recycled or stored in gas or liquid form, a process known as sequestration.

CO2-selective polymeric chains anchored on graphene effectively pull CO2 from a flue gas mixture. Credit: KV Agrawal (EPFL)

Carbon capture can be done using high-performance membranes, which are polymer filters that can specifically pick out CO₂ from a mix of gases, such as those emitted from a factory's flue. These membranes are environmentally friendly, they don't generate waste, they can intensify chemical processes, and can be used in a decentralized fashion. They are now considered as one of the most energy-efficient routes for reducing CO₂ emissions. Now, scientists (led by Kumar Varoon Agrawal) at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) have developed a new class of high-performance membranes that exceed post-combustion capture targets by a significant margin. The membranes are based on single-layer graphene with a selective layer thinner than 20 nm, and have highly tunable chemistry, meaning that they can pave the way for next-generation high-performance membranes for several critical separations.

Stanford physicists recently observed a novel form of magnetism, predicted but never seen before, that is generated when two graphene sheets are carefully stacked and rotated to a special angle. The researchers suggest the magnetism, called orbital ferromagnetism, could prove useful for certain applications, such as quantum computing.

Optical micrograph of the assembled stacked structure, which consists of two graphene sheets sandwiched between two protective layers made of hexagonal boron nitride. (Image: Aaron Sharpe)

We were not aiming for magnetism. We found what may be the most exciting thing in my career to date through partially targeted and partially accidental exploration, said study leader David Goldhaber-Gordon, a professor of physics at Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences. Our discovery shows that the most interesting things turn out to be surprises sometimes.

Paragraf, which recently raised $16 million USD to push forward graphene-based electronics technologies, and Queen Mary University of London have been awarded £500,000 (around $623,000 USD) by Innovate UK to explore using graphene to replace the rare metal Indium.

The Queen Mary research will be led by Sir Colin Humphreys from Queen Mary's School of Engineering and Materials Science, with co-investigators Dr. Oliver Fenwick from the same School and Professor William Gillin from the School of Physics. The Project Manager is Dr Ivor Guiney of Paragraf.

Project "HEA2D", which started in 2016 and set out to investigate the production, qualities, and applications of 2D nanomaterials, recently demonstrated end-to-end processing chain of two-dimensional nanomaterials. The project is a collaboration between AIXTRON, AMO, Coatema, Fraunhofer and Kunststoff-Institut für die mittelständische Wirtschaft (K.I.M.W.).

It was stated that the "HEA2D" consortium successfully demonstrated an end-to-end processing chain of two-dimensional nanomaterials as part of its results. 2D materials integrated into mass production processes have the potential to create integrated and systemic product and production solutions that are socially, economically and ecologically sustainable. Application areas for the technologies developed and materials investigated in this project are mainly composite materials and coatings, highly sensitive sensors, power generation and storage, electronics, information and communication technologies as well as photonics and quantum technologies.

Sweden-based startup Graphmatech announced the launch of a new graphene-enhanced composite material. The new product, called Aros Create, is made of Nylon Aros Graphene pellets with a volume resistivity of less than 1 Ωcm while maintaining polymer lightweight, flexibility, processability, and recyclability.

The new composite may be used for extrusion, compression molding and injection molding and reportedly has unique electrical and tribological properties (low and stable coefficient of friction and high wear resistance). The potential applications are diverse, but the company's main focus is on electrical circuit components, LED, conductive coatings, additive manufacturing, EMI / RFI shielding, and charge dissipative coatings.

Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) in Switzerland and the University of Manchester in the UK have found an efficient way to control infrared and terahertz waves using graphene. "There exist a class of the so-called Dirac materials, where the electrons behave as if they do not have a mass, similar to light particles, the photons," explains Alexey Kuzmenko, a researcher at the Department of Quantum Matter Physics in UNIGE's Science Faculty, who co-conducted this research together with Ievgeniia Nedoliuk.

The interaction between graphene and light suggests that this material could be used to control infrared and terahertz waves. "That would be a huge step forward for optoelectronics, security, telecommunications and medical diagnostics," points out the Switzerland-based researcher.

Analysts from IDTechEx estimate that the global supercapacitor market is around $1.5 billion in annual sales, following several years of decline. IDTechEx, however, believes the market bottomed out in 2018-2019 and is set now for a sustained period of strong growth.

Allied Market Research, supercapacitor market 2016-2022

IDTechEx explains that the market is expected to grow quickly in the coming years, as companies are expected to increase the use of supercapacitors over batteries in electric and hybrid cars as the customers are seeking faster charging and safer transport. Allied Market Research estimates that the Supercapacitor market will grow at a CAGR of 28.7% from 2016 to 2022 and will reach $6.3 billion in 2022, while India-based also sees a fast growth rate of 22% from 2016 to 2022, and estimates a $4 billion market in 2022. Both market research companies did not see the down year in 2016-2019, but it is still interesting to note these market forecasts.