Global infrastructure services firm Aecom is reportedly developing one of the UK’s first 3D-printed commercial products made from graphene-reinforced polymer.

The CNCTArch is being tested in Bristol (Photo from Aecom)

Aecom has produced a graphene arch using additive manufacturing techniques. It believes the method could reduce the time and cost of installing digital signalling systems and transform the digitization of transport networks. The 4.5-meter high, lightweight arch is being tested on outdoor track at Network Rail’s workforce development center in Bristol.

Riptron, a spin-out company from the University of Manchester, has entered a partnership with China-based Tunghsu Optoelectronics to advance graphene sensors designed to measure the quality of air. The graphene-based sensors are expected to enter mass production shortly following the partnership between the two companies.

In this context, Riptron will secure around £1 million investment over two stages from Tunghsu Optoelectronics.

Israel's Bar Ilan University (BIU) will establish a nanotechnology excellence center in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The new center at the BIU will include a laboratory to focus on nanomedicine research and two-dimensional (2D) materials engineering, mainly producing graphene.

According to BIU, the main task of the joint research lab is to integrate teamwork of Chinese and Israeli researchers with the participation of industrialists from both countries.

Researchers from Northwestern University have recently shown that graphene oxide paper can be made by mixing strong, solid GO flakes with weak, porous GO flakes. This finding may aid the production of higher quality GO materials, and also sheds light on a general problem in materials engineering: how to build a nano-scale material into a macroscopic material without losing its desirable properties.

Large single layers of GO wrinkle easily, leaving breakable gaps. Small, hard flakes don’t integrate well. image by Northwestern

To put it in human terms, collaboration is very important, said Jiaxing Huang, Northwestern Engineering professor of materials science and engineering, who led the study. Excellent players can still make a bad team if they don’t work well together. Here, we add some seemingly weaker players and they strengthen the whole team.

Samsung may be in the race to develop a graphene-based alternative to lithium-ion batteries for its phones. Rumors are going around claiming that the Company hopes to have at least one phone with a graphene battery ready next year or by 2021.

The word is that these graphene-based batteries will be capable of a full charge in under a half-hour, but they still need to raise capacities while lowering costs. In 2017, Samsung said its researchers developed a "graphene ball" material that enables five times faster charging speeds than standard lithium-ion batteries.

Researchers from Bar-Ilan University in Israel and Yale University in the U.S have reported on a novel device architecture comprising graphene Schottky diode varactors. The team assessed that such devices have great potential for optoelectronics applications.

graphically illustrated edge contact image

The team has shown that graphene varactor diodes exhibit significant advantages compared with existing graphene photodetectors, including elimination of high dark currents and enhancement of the external quantum efficiency (EQE).

Versarien released details on the Company's expansion plans for its graphene business in China, which in the past were referred to as a "term sheet" with the Beijing Institute of Graphene Technology ("BIGT").

According to Versarien, the term sheet "envisaged that BIGT would provide funding to Versarien for the proposed wholly owned subsidiary ("WFOE") and other corporate purposes in the form of an equity investment".

Researchers at Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) have developed a graphene-based technology that can obtain high-resolution, micrometer-sized images for mass spectrometric analysis without sample preparation. DGIST Research Fellow Jae Young Kim and Chair-professor Dae Won Moon's team succeeded in developing the precise analysis and micrometer-sized imaging of bio samples using a small and inexpensive laser.

Due to its ability to obtain high-resolution mass spectrometric images without an experimental environment using a 'continuous wave laser,' the technology is expected to be applied widely in medicine and medical diagnosis fields.

STANDARD GRAPHENE, a flake graphene producer headquartered in South Korea, recently announced the establishment of a water filtration plant at Lumbini, Nepal.

The water filtration plant reportedly uses a material called Super Graphite that has been developed from graphene manufacture technologies. The plant cleans the water through four filtration cycles, processing more than 1,000L of drinkable water per day. After multiple international tests, Super Graphite has reportedly been recognized to have a superior attraction to toxic materials and better filtration rates than conventional materials used for water filtration.

A research team led by Rutgers University has discovered that in the presence of a moiré pattern in graphene, electrons organize themselves into stripes, like soldiers in formation. The team's findings could help in the search for quantum materials, such as superconductors, that would work at room temperature. Such materials would dramatically reduce energy consumption by making power transmission and electronic devices more efficient.

Left: image shows a moiré pattern in "magic angle" twisted bilayer graphene. Right: Scanning tunneling charge spectroscopy, shows correlated electrons. Credit: Rutgers University

"Our findings provide an essential clue to the mystery connecting a form of graphene, called twisted bilayer graphene, to superconductors that could work at room temperature," said senior author Eva Y. Andrei, Board of Governors professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers UniversityNew Brunswick.