September 2023

U.K.-based Evove, which develops graphene-enhanced membrane and filtering solutions, has announced it has completed a pilot demonstrating the use of its filter technology at a large AB InBev brewery in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

It was explained that making beer is a process that requires a lot of water: Just sterilizing the equipment in a brewery can mean using thousands of gallons of water every week. That’s especially problematic in a place like drought-prone Johannesburg, where a water shortages and leaky infrastructure mean that water can be in short supply. Normally, the hot, caustic water used to clean tanks and water lines at a brewery can’t be reused, and ends up in the sewer system. It’s filled with grain residues, sugars, and yeasts that can’t easily be filtered out. “With conventional filters, it just clogs up the filters right away,” says Andrew Walker, Evove’s chief marketing officer.

A research team from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of California has reported that the friction on a graphene surface can be dynamically tuned using external electric fields. 

The team studied the friction at a single asperity nanoscale contact between the graphene surface of graphene FETs and an AFM tip in a dry nitrogen atmosphere, while the doping level of graphene was modulated in situ by changing the potential applied to the device’s back gate. In contrast to conducting or insulating contacts, graphene in contact with semiconducting tips exhibits an enhanced and tunable friction sensitive to the charge density in graphene.

Chinese electronics company Midea has unveiled an anti-corrosion solution to improve air conditioner performance and reliability in coastal and tropical climates. The solution, featuring proprietary tech called Hyper Grapfins and sheet metal coatings, is integrated into two Midea HVAC systems, BreezelessE and PenroseAir. This technology provides comprehensive protection against salty, humid air, enhancing the durability and lifespan of both indoor and outdoor units.

Air conditioning in coastal regions can be challenging due to the corrosive effects of salt air on the critical components, leading to costly maintenance and replacements for restaurateurs and hotel owners. To address the problem, Midea developed the patented Prime Guard Hyper Grapfin which is coated with graphene to increase the durability, performance, and energy efficiency of HVAC systems.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have fabricated meter-long composite fibers combining graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets with flexible, conductive polymers that can achieve mechanical strength, toughness, and actuation that surpasses biological muscles.

The team wet-spin a mixture of GO nanosheets and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT: PSS) into a composite fiber in which the flexible, conductive polymer is embedded in between aligned, closely-packed nanosheets. The addition of a depleting agent, polyethylene glycol (PEG), improves toughness and elasticity, while chemical reduction of GO to rGO increases electrical conductivity. Finally, the composite fibers are plied with nylon yarns to create a hierarchical composite actuator with capabilities better than typical biological muscles (75 J/kg work capacity and 924 W/kg power density).

Ningbo has announced a graphene competition whose winner will receive project funding of up to 10 million yuan (about $1.3 million USD) & a direct investment of 10 million yuan (plus development incentives of 10 million yuan).

Ningbo, a port city in China, has put great efforts into strengthening its economic and technological abilities in recent years, with a special focus on graphene production and applications. In 2022, Ningbo City launched the National Graphene Innovation Center (NGIC). The center adopts a “company + alliance” operation model and is jointly operated by the National Graphene Innovation Center and China Innovation Alliance of the Graphene Industry (CGIA).

In order to build a future leading area for the graphene industry, NGIC will hold the 2023 “Graphene Creates the Future” Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition on October 20. It is seeking entries from entrepreneurial and innovative teams (individuals) with significant prospects in the graphene industry chain from all over the world.

Researchers from Japan's University of Tsukuba, Nagoya University, Osaka University and Germany's Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research have developed a graphene-based method that can prevent the crossover of large fuel molecules and suppress the degradation of electrodes in advanced fuel cell technology using methanol or formic acid.

The successful sieving of the fuel molecules is achieved via selective proton transfers due to steric hindrance on holey graphene sheets that have chemical functionalization and act as proton-exchange membranes.

NanoXplore has announced that it has been awarded three programs from two existing customers, one large commercial vehicle OEM and one industrial equipment manufacturer, to supply exterior parts of vehicles.  These components are used in both internal combustion engines and electric vehicles.

Production for the first program will begin in 2024 while the start of production for the other two programs is planned for 2026. These programs generally last for a period of 10 years. The Corporation estimates that these programs will generate CAD$24 million (over USD$17,700,000) in annual sales at mature volumes along with a one-time tooling revenue of CAD$10 million (over USD$7,400,000). The Corporation has reportedly already secured the related manufacturing equipment to fulfill these orders and the expansion of the North Carolina facility is ongoing. These investments are part of NanoXplore’s 5-year strategic plan.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana─Champaign and the University of Nebraska─Lincoln have developed a method for "wiring up" graphene nanoribbons (GNRs). Using a direct-write scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) based process, the nanometer-scale metal contacts were fabricated on individual GNRs and could control the electronic character of the GNRs. 

The team says that this is the first demonstration of making metal contacts to specific GNRs with certainty and that those contacts induce device functionality needed for transistor function.

The 2023 China International Graphene Innovation Conference (GRAPCHINA 2023), will be held in Shanghai, China from November 10 to 12, 2023. The conference will be jointly hosted by the National Graphene Innovation Center, Shanghai University and the Graphene Alliance (CGIA). Minyang Lu, the Deputy Secretary-General of the CGIA, was kind enough to answer a few questions we had regarding the upcoming conference.

Hello Minyang, thank you for your time. Can you tell us more about the GRAPCHINA event?

The International Graphene Innovation Conference has been successfully held for nine years. The number of participants has set a new record year each year, and its influence has continued to improve. The nine sessions attracted more than 4,000 enterprises, 23,000 participants and 1,200 experts in new materials field, which came from over 30 countries and regions around the world. At present, it has developed into a gathering place, a vanue and an international event for the world's cutting-edge graphene technology achievements and innovative products. The graphene application expo held simultaneously with the conference, will continuously inject new vitality into the development of the global graphene industry by gathering the global graphene industrialization achievements. 

The 2023 International Graphene Innovation Conference (GRAPCHINA 2023) will be organized by the China Innovation Alliance of the Graphene Industry (CGIA), National Graphene Innovation Center (NGIC) and Shanghai University in Shanghai on November 10-12 of the year 2023. This year, GRAPCHINA 2023 will focus on the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, international cooperation, and industrial and supply chain, we will work with end users to create a number of commercialization forums.