December 2024

Perpetuus Advanced Materials has announced its first nano-engineered graphene-enhanced masterbatch compounds, tailored specifically for commercial, passenger, and industrial tire manufacturing. The initial release will soon expand to include polymer and elastomer masterbatches for use in industries such as hoses, seals, gaskets, V-belts, and conveyor belts.

By utilizing its environmentally friendly plasma treatment process, Perpetuus incorporates its advanced graphene into the masterbatch. This innovation is now available in industrial quantities, enabling tire manufacturers to integrate this breakthrough material into their existing production workflows.

Westlake Innovations, Inc., a subsidiary of Westlake Corporation (NYSE: WLK), has announced it has invested in Universal Matter, who aims to become the leading supplier of high-quality and sustainable graphene and advanced materials to help decarbonize the planet. Westlake’s action builds upon the company’s commitment to helping develop a more sustainable future through continuous improvement its own manufacturing as well as strategic investments in innovative technologies and startup firms.

Universal Matter has pioneered and patented Flash Joule Heating (FJH) technology that allows for cost-effective, industrial-scale upcycling of carbon waste streams into high-quality graphene and graphitized carbon. First developed at Rice University, Universal Matter’s FJH technology creates graphene that is tunable across 1D, 2D, and 3D morphologies, granting superior properties that are critical for large industrial applications.

Versarien has announced that its 90%-owned subsidiary Gnanomat has been awarded a €0.8 million (around USD$840,000) grant to support a two-year project focused on next-generation energy storage devices. 

Versarien said that the grant was expected to be received in a single payment before the end of 2024. It said the funding would cover 70% of Gnanomat's anticipated costs for the development of GnanoCaps, an energy storage device leveraging the company's proprietary hybrid nanomaterials platform. GnanoCaps was designed to combine the high power and rapid recharge capabilities of supercapacitors with improved energy delivery, enhanced safety, and the use of clean electrolytes, eliminating explosion risks associated with lithium-ion batteries.

It was recently announced that HydroGraph Clean Power entered into two significant alliances in battery materials with Volfpack Energy and NEI Corporation.

The first agreement with NEI focuses on developing graphene-enhanced battery materials, featuring co-branded products and positioning NEI as a key channel partner for HydroGraph's graphene materials in the battery market. The second deal with Volfpack Energy focuses on the development of next-generation supercapacitors using HydroGraph's fractal graphene technology.

Researchers from the University of Central Florida (UCF) have developed a specialized tunable detection and imaging technique for infrared photons that reportedly surpasses present technology and may be a cost-effective method of capturing thermal imaging or night vision, medical imaging, spectroscopy and space exploration.

The new technique detects long wave infrared (LWIR) photons of different wavelengths or “colors”. It was reported that these findings are the result of a $1.5 million project funded through the Extreme Photon Imaging Capabilities program of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that was awarded nearly two years ago.

HydroGraph Clean Power has announced the closing of a non-brokered private placement. Pursuant to the upsized and subsequently oversubscribed offering, the total aggregate gross proceeds amount to $3,828,800 (over USD$2,690,000).

Net proceeds from the offering will be used to further commercial activity for the Company’s differentiated graphene products via application development at the GEIC (Graphene Engineering Innovation Center) and other direct customer relationships, production upscaling, business development and general working capital purposes.

In a recent PR, Graphene Manufacturing Group (GMG) shared that it continues to advance the commercialization of its THERMAL-XR coating system with the product being tested with companies in multiple industries, including on heat sinks for electronics.

Third-party modelling indicates that applying THERMAL-XR to heat sinks can reduce their size by up to 39% while maintaining the same thermal performance, the company highlighted. This reduction could lead to savings in weight and material costs. The technology also lowers the maximum temperature of heat sinks by 23%, improving their efficiency.

Zentek has announced a strategic partnership with Al-Ramez International Group, facilitated through Saudi Excellence Holding Company. The partnership aims to foster innovation and commercialization of advanced technologies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Under the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), Zentek will contribute its intellectual property, product licensing, and research and development expertise. In turn, Al-Ramez International Group will provide marketing support, investor relations, financing, and market access within KSA and MENA. The collaboration seeks to achieve several objectives, including the development of a graphene production facility in KSA, a commercialization hub for Zentek's graphene technologies, and the expansion of biotechnology research. The agreement also aims to secure strategic investment in resources to support the North American supply chain for advanced materials and establish a research and development center for aptamer technology in conjunction with a Saudi university.

Graphene’ s quantum properties, such as superconductivity and other unique quantum behaviors, are known to arise when graphene atomic layers are stacked and twisted with precision to produce “ABC stacking domains.” Historically, achieving ABC stacking domains required exfoliating graphene and manually twisting and aligning layers with exact orientations—an intricate process that is difficult to scale for industrial applications.

Recently, researchers at NYU Tandon School of Engineering and Charles University in Prague, led by Elisa Riedo and Herman F. Mark, uncovered a new phenomenon in graphene research, observing growth-induced self-organized ABA and ABC stacking domains that could promote the development of advanced quantum technologies. The findings of their study demonstrate how specific stacking arrangements in three-layer epitaxial graphene systems emerge naturally — eliminating the need for complex, non-scalable techniques traditionally used in graphene twisting fabrication.

Versarien has launched a new biosensor chip utilizing novel graphene barristor sensor platform technology. These graphene barristor devices, developed in South Korea by A Barristor Company (ABC), will utilize chemical vapor deposition (CVD) grown graphene, that is produced under a Versarien license. Versarien has signed a distribution agreement with ABC to distribute the products in the UK and Europe.

A barristor (triode device) is a new type of graphene‐based transistor with a Schottky barrier between graphene and silicon. The current modulation is amplified more than 10,000 times compared to graphene field‐effect transistors (GFET), enabling the barristor transistors to overcome many GFET limitations.