Graphene sensors: introduction and market status - Page 34

Nanomedical Diagnostics recently announced the launch of the new graphene-enhanced NHS Agile biosensor chip. The new chip reportedly reduces the number of steps needed to gain kinetic binding data for a wide range of molecules, including small and large molecules, peptides, proteins, and antibodies. NHS biosensors are designed for use on the company’s Agile R100 label-free personal assay system.

Many pharmaceutical companies have established protocols for studying molecules using standard amine-linker chemistry, noted Nanomedical Diagnostics' CEO. However, traditional methods using these protocols require numerous steps on complicated machines that make experiments difficult to run and prone to variability. Our new NHS biosensor combined with the single-sample format Agile R100 allows researchers to leverage these tried and true techniques, but reduces the process greatly compared to prior systems. Both experiment complexity and results variability are decreased, which gives all researchers the ability to gain reliable label-free kinetic binding data for their molecules at their benchtop, on their schedule.

Grolltex, a U.S-based advanced materials and equipment company, recently announced a large-capacity commercial lab for production of high quality CVD graphene. Grolltex states that it is now manufacturing the material in its new class 1000 clean room, producing both raw graphene as well as products made from the material, like sensors, perovskite solar cells, display materials and X-ray windows for use in spacecraft.

The new Grolltex graphene facility is said to be capable of producing large high-quality sheets of graphene for commercial sale. The Company is said to have a patented methodology to manufacture the material in a novel way that yields lower-cost materials of high quality. Grolltex leverages graphene research and patents developed at nearby University of California, San Diego.

Graphene Flagship Partners RWTH Aachen University and AMO GmbH, both based in Germany, recently launched a new joint research center with a focus on efficiently bridging the gap between fundamental science and applications within graphene and related materials based electronics and photonics.

The five founding Principal Investigators of the Aachen Graphene & 2D-Materials Center are all members of the Graphene Flagship and share the vision of bringing graphene and related materials research from the lab into applications. The Center will help to turn the exciting properties of graphene and 2D-materials into true functions, making these materials not only fascinating for scientists but also serving society, as was explained.

A collaboration work by Purdue, the Chinese Lanzhou University and Harbin Institute of Technology, and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has yielded a lightweight, flame-resistant and super-elastic composite shown to combine high strength with electrical conductivity and thermal insulation, suggesting potential applications from buildings to aerospace.

The composite material is made of interconnected cells of graphene sandwiched between ceramic layers. The graphene scaffold, referred to as an aerogel, is chemically bonded with ceramic layers using a process called atomic layer deposition. The team explained that graphene would ordinarily degrade when exposed to high temperature, but the ceramic imparts high heat tolerance and flame-resistance, properties that might be useful as a heat shield for aircraft. The light weight, high-strength and shock-absorbing properties could make the composite a good substrate material for flexible electronic devices. Because it has high electrical conductivity and yet is an excellent thermal insulator, it might be used as a flame-retardant, thermally insulating coating, as well as sensors and devices that convert heat into electricity, said associate professor in the School of Industrial Engineering at Purdue University.

Imagine IM, developer of graphene-based smart materials, was one of the three companies that were awarded US$80,000 grants for research and development projects targeting safer and smarter Australian roads by Transurban (manager and developer of urban toll road networks in Australia and the U.S).

Imagine IM received the funds for a trial of a pressure sensor made from graphene that, when constructed into the motorway surface, would enable a ‘smarter’ road capable of reporting on traffic density, weight, volume and road surface condition.

We recently reported that U.S-based Alliance Rubber signed an agreement with University of Sussex to study how graphene could be used in rubber products. Now, Zenyatta Ventures and said Alliance Rubber and the University of Sussex have announced a collaboration program to develop enhanced rubber products.

Alliance manufactures 2,200 products and markets them in 55 countries. It is funding research at Sussex to develop enhanced new rubber products using graphene, focusing on rubber sensor products that will hold credit and debit cards to prevent hacking of information stored on the chip. The Alliance program will also focus on a rubber sensor product attached to food produce that changes color when the produce item reaches a set temperature or after a certain amount of time passes since harvest. This product can also act as a bar code on produce in grocery stores.

Researchers from Tsinghua University in China have developed a graphene-based user-interactive electronic skin, capable of changing color. The team made use of flexible electronics made from graphene, in the form of a highly-sensitive resistive strain sensor, combined with a stretchable organic electrochromic device.

To obtain good performance with a simple process and reduced cost, they designed a structure to use graphene as both the highly sensitive strain-sensing element and the insensitive stretchable electrode of the electric current density (ECD) layer.

Zenyatta Ventures, a Canadian graphite explorer, has formed a wholly owned European subsidiary company named ZEN-tech Materials to focus on the development and commercialization activities of graphene applications and the allocation of any associated intellectual property and worldwide licensing.

Zenyatta stated that the formation of ZEN-tech is a strategic move that will provide it with a way to capture value and advance graphene application development separate from the mineral development business. Zenyatta will continue to focus on advancing the Albany graphite deposit towards production and will supply highly crystalline, purified graphite to ZEN-tech, academics and end users.

An international group of researchers from Saudi Arabia, China and the US have developed a graphene-bacterial cellulose nanofiber (GC/BCN) hybrid sensor to detect alcohol (ethanol) with great efficiency. The sensor was described as flexible, transparent, highly sensitive and with an excellent alcohol recognition performance. Electrical tests in different liquid environments were performed, with remarkable results.

The researchers created a composite thin film composed of graphene and bacterial cellulose nanofibers. In this material, the bacterial cellulose nanofibres act as the host and the graphene as the filler material. Due to its excellent conductive properties, it was reported that graphene does not require the addition of a conductive filler material, unlike many composites. The Researchers constructed the composite using a combination of wet chemical, blending, sonication (Cole-Parmer), centrifugal (Centrifuge 5810, Eppendorf), dialysis and sputtering (Equipment Support Co) methods.

A team of researchers from Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has developed sensors which can be sprayed directly onto flat or curved surfaces. The sensors, made from a hybrid of carbon black (CB), graphene, other conductive nano-scale particles, and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), can be networked to extract rich real-time information on the health status of the structure being monitored.

The technology includes a sensor network with a number of the sprayed nanocomposite sensors and an ultrasound actuator to actively detect the health condition of the structure to which they are fixed. When the ultrasound actuator emits guided ultrasonic waves (GUWs), the sensors will receive and measure the waves. If damage is detected, such as a crack in the structure, propagation of GUWs will be interfered by the damage, leading to the wave scattering phenomena to be captured by the sensor network. The damage can then be characterised quantitatively and accurately.