Graphene Manufacturing Group (GMG) has announced the commissioning of its natural gas to graphene production plant in manufacturing facility at Richlands, Australia.

The facility is based on the GMG plasma technology with which the Company's existing production plant has been making graphene for over five years, however this new plant is built in a modular fashion which can allow more production units to be installed as the sales of Company's products grows. GMG expects to be able to install at least an additional 20 graphene production units in the Richlands manufacturing facility with most of the supporting infrastructure for these additional production units already installed as part of this initial project.

Argo Living Soils, a company that specializes in producing and developing organic products, including soil amendments, living soils, biofertilizers and vermicompost, has announced it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with an intent to establish a joint venture with Graphene Leaders Canada (GLC) that will see the companies bring their proprietary technologies together in the pursuit of commercially viable graphene-based products. 

The primary objective of the proposed joint venture is to conduct research and development to enhance product lines by reducing the cost of graphene production by using Argo's CHAR+ BioChar.

Directa Plus has announced a significant expansion of its collaboration with CIA Miguel Caballero, a prominent manufacturer of bulletproof vests and personal protective equipment (PPE).

Directa Plus began collaborating with CIA Miguel Caballero in July 2022, supplying advanced graphene-based textile solutions that enhance the performance and comfort of bulletproof vests. The collaboration is reportedly entering a new phase of growth, solidifying the Group's position as a partner in CIA Miguel Caballero's product innovations.

Researchers at the University of Kansas’ Ultrafast Laser Lab have observed the ballistic movement of electrons in graphene in real time. 

Image credit: University of Kansas

“Generally, electron movement is interrupted by collisions with other particles in solids,” said lead author Ryan Scott, a doctoral student in KU’s Department of Physics & Astronomy. “This is similar to someone running in a ballroom full of dancers. These collisions are rather frequent — about 10 to 100 billion times per second. They slow down the electrons, cause energy loss and generate unwanted heat. Without collisions, an electron would move uninterrupted within a solid, similar to cars on a freeway or ballistic missiles through air. We refer to this as ‘ballistic transport.’”

Concretene has signed a development deal with piling and pre-cast concrete manufacturer Roger Bullivant to supply its graphene-enhanced admixture that reduces carbon in concrete.

Concretene has secured £1.2 million in Government backing for a project further testing the technology - and if successful, then commercial deliveries could start in late 2024.

First Graphene has announced details of an independent study into the performance of graphene-based electrocatalysts for the generation of green hydrogen. The study by the Centre for Process Innovation UK (“CPI”) showed electrodes composed of First Graphene’s metal-oxide doped graphene reduced the amount of power required to produce hydrogen from the electrolysis of water.

Analysis by the CPI has confirmed metal-oxide doped graphene materials from First Graphene can reduce overpotential, which is a measurement of energy efficiency of the electrolyser, by 43%. Improvements to the process were also identified that can increase throughput by 64%, reduce raw material costs by 50% and broaden metal oxide options in the product, providing a cost-effective commercial solution for the green hydrogen industry.

Canada-based Zentek has announced the launch of Triera Biosciences as its wholly owned subsidiary for its aptamer platform technology. This subsidiary now owns the exclusive, global licensing rights for all aptamer-based technology from the collaboration with McMaster University.

The Company is repotedly taking this action following the strong, consistent pre-clinical results of its universal aptamer as a treatment against the SARS-CoV-2 virus including the latest Omicron XBB 1.5 variant and will continue to build upon its previous work on a rapid detection platform within the new subsidiary. Triera will offer a pure play in the biotech space when operated as an independent business and be more accessible to potential pharmaceutical partners, funders, and other interested parties.

A new Horizon Europe funded project was launched in October 2023. With a consortium of 11 partners from 8 different countries, the Next-2Digits project aims to develop the next generation of sensors and imagers enabled by 2D materials digital integration. Next-2Digits will run for 3 years and 3 months.

Coordinated by the National Technical University of Athens, Next-2Digits benefits from the presence of academic, research and industrial teams, whose areas of work span from graphene and 2D materials synthesis, characterization, manipulation, and integration, as well as in the fields of photonics, material science, application-based integration technologies and validation.

HydroGraph Clean Power has announced successful testing of its flagship product, FGA-1, fractal graphene, in electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding.

The integration of HydroGraph’s graphene in epoxy resin was reportedly able to achieve substantial EMI shielding properties by reaching an 80-decible (dB) attenuation (a reduction of signal strength during transmission) in shielded enclosures of less than 1 mm thick. Minimum ratings for consumer protection are 30 dB and ranges from 60 dB to 80 dB for automotive and aerospace applications.

Researchers from Korea's Seoul National University and Sungkyunkwan University recently developed a method to grow GaN LED arrays on a flexible graphene layer. The so-called microdisk arrays exhibit excellent crystallinity with a uniform in-plane orientation and strong blue light emission.

Flexible GaN-microLEDs on graphene, Seoul National University, Sungkyunkwan University

The researchers grew the GaN microdisks on a graphene layer (grown on a sapphire substrate) covered with a micro-patterned SiO₂ mask using metal–organic vapor-phase epitaxy. The microdisks were then processed into micro-LEDs and then successfully transferred onto bendable substrates.