January 2021

In December 2020, Advanced Material Development (AMD) announced that it secured its first contract under the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) Weapons Sector Research Framework (WSRF), worth £125,000 (around USD$166,700). Now, AMD announced that it has received a further award for its ongoing collaborative camouflage work with the United States Army.

Richard Lee, Chief Commercial Officer of AMD says: "We are delighted to continue the development of our metamaterial based frequency reflector technology into 2021 and are now in discussions with colleagues at the Army Research Labs regarding development of prototype systems throughout 2022 and 2023".

MIT researchers and colleagues have discovered a new and important electronic property of graphene. The work, which involves structures composed of atomically thin layers of materials that are also biocompatible, could usher in new, faster information-processing paradigms. One potential application is in neuromorphic computing, which aims to replicate the neuronal cells in the body responsible for everything from behavior to memories.

Graphene-based heterostructures continue to produce fascinating surprises. Our observation of unconventional ferroelectricity in this simple and ultra-thin system challenges many of the prevailing assumptions about ferroelectric systems and it may pave the way for an entire generation of new ferroelectrics materials, says Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics at MIT and leader of the work, which involved a collaboration with five other MIT faculty from three departments.

Applied Graphene Materials has raised £6 million (around USD$8.2 million) from institutions and private investors for working capital to help it serve expected growth in customer and product demand.

Giving more detail on the need for the extra funds, Applied Graphene Materials' board stated it believes the group has a product range and third party distributor network to capitalize on the opportunities in its markets and accelerate commercial momentum.

NanoXplore recently announced that it has entered into an agreement with a syndicate of underwriters co-led by Echelon Wealth Partners and National Bank Financial to raise, on a bought deal public offering basis, approximately CAD$40 million (around USD$31.4 million).

The Company intends to use the net proceeds for battery initiatives, debt reduction, sales and marketing of graphene and for general corporate purposes.

A research team at South China University of Technology, Peking University and other China-based universities have developed an accurate, rapid, and portable electrical detector based on the use of graphene field-effect transistors (G-FETs) for detection of RNA from COVID-19 patients.

The detection system consists of two main parts: a plug-and-play packaged biosensor chip and an electrical measurement machine. The unique feature of this method is that the extent of hybridization between the ss-DNA probe and viral RNA can be directly converted to the current change of graphene channels without repetition of the PCR process. Furthermore, this method was validated using clinical samples collected from many patients with COVID-19 infection and healthy individuals as well, and the testing results were in full agreement with those of PCR-based optical methods.

China Carbon Graphite Group, Chinese manufacturer of graphene and graphite-based products, has announced that together with the research and development team of its subsidiary, Royal Elite New Energy Science and Technology ("Roycarbon"), the company is developing a new silicon graphene nanocomposite product for next-gen lithium-ion batteries.

This upcoming product is expected to replace the current anode material and would provide improvements in electrochemical performance for the latest EV and mobile device batteries.

A team of Brown University researchers has found a way to orient the gaps that form between sheets of graphene that are stacked on top of each other. The tiny gaps, called nanochannels, are positioned by the team in a way that makes them more useful for filtering water and other liquids of nanoscale contaminants.

Structure and fabrication steps leading to vertically aligned Zr-GO/epoxy membranes. Image from article

In the last decade, a whole field has sprung up to study these spaces that form between 2D nanomaterials, said Robert Hurt, a professor in Brown’s School of Engineering and coauthor of the research. You can grow things in there, you can store things in there, and there’s this emerging field of nanofluidics where you’re using those channels to filter out some molecules while letting others go through.

India-based Nanomatrix Materials (NM Materials) produces graphene-oxide materials and derivatives (such as r-GO) at its 20Kg/month GO plant, and the company recently launched its own brand of graphene-enhanced face mask, the G1 Wonder mask.

A few weeks ago, NM Materials sent us a couple of masks for a review here at Graphene-Info, and this short review will summarize our findings.

Israel-based laser-induced graphene developer LIGC Application announced that its ViralWall air-purifier is now available for pre-order. The ViralWall costs $279, and will ship in April.

Using a graphene-based filter, the ViralWall "cleans the air from airborne bacteria and viruses and creates an invisible 1.2x1.6 meter air screen between people to prevent the spread of harmful airborne particles".

Researchers from the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) at the University of Warwick, together with members from the Imperial College London, have enhanced three hybrid flow cells with the use of nitrogen doped graphene - graphene sheets exposed to nitrogen plasma - using a binder-free electrophoresis (EPD) technique.

The EPD process schematic. Image from article

The new technique could potentially promote wider acceptance and renewable energy sources - such as hydro and solar power - currently limited by intermittency problems that prevent mass adoption of these sources into larger, national-scale power grids. One idea explored in working around this limitation is the use of long-duration battery technologies, like redox flow batteries. However, despite its longevity and performance, current costs have become significant tradeoff considerations and also hampers widespread adoption.