Last month Australia's Strategic Energy Resources (SER) announced that it will focus on graphene-related investments, disclosing that it has an alliance with Monash University and an exclusive license agreement on the energy storage graphene technologies.
Today it was announced that SER and Monash University have been awarded a second ARC Linkage Grant for graphene-based research. The three-year project will cost $375,000 (probably AUD, which translates to $350,000 USD). The ARC will fund $255,000 and the rest will be funded by SER. The project (titled Green Manufacturing of Graphene from Indigenous Natural Graphite and Graphene-based Nanofiltration Membranes) aims to establish a green chemical route for transforming graphites fines into graphene.
The research team will develop scalable coating methods for producing asymmetric, inert, robust, and highly permeable graphene membranes. They are also targeting the application of those membranes -a safe and economical treatment of corrosive mining effluents and the recovery of precious metals. This research team already reported some very encouraging results for water purification, with the development of super-sand, sand grains coated with graphene layers.