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U.S-based startup Urbix Resources has announced closing its Series A round of financing with an oversubscribed commitment of $3.5 million USD. The Company states that in addition to current investors and management, this round included an international investment from a management company based in Mexico.

It was gratifying to find ourselves in a position where our funding objectives were oversubscribed, comments Executive Chairman Nico Cuevas. This allows us to focus on our main initiatives including the construction of our low-cost/clean tech pilot purification facility and the construction of our proprietary pristine graphene reactor. This leads us to our goal of bringing graphene at a commercial scale to the market at about $1 per gram.

Australia-based mining company Archer Exploration has announced a collaboration agreement with the University of New South Wales (UNSW) to develop and implement Archer’s graphite and graphene materials for use in energy storage system applications targeting lithium-ion batteries.

The collaboration will mainly focus on the design of high-performance electrodes for lithium-ion batteries using graphite and graphene sourced from Archer’s Campoona deposit. This work is aiming at the development of electrodes for lithium-ion batteries and implementation of these electrodes in a number of advanced application full-cell and half-cell configurations.

Elcora Advanced Materials has announced that it has entered into a strategic relationship with Elephant Red Maple Leaves New Material Technology (Suzhou, China). The objective of this collaboration is to develop graphene coatings applications.

Elcora and its strategic partners are now pursuing the use of graphene in the coatings business for functional and production efficiencies for instance, by replacing or reducing toxic materials such as cuprous oxide and zinc. The partners will also further explore graphite powder anodes opportunities in Asia and develop graphene enhanced components for Lithium-ion batteries. Elephant Red has many industrial clients and a growing network of about 300 distributors in China.

Researchers from Freie Universität Berlin, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and Universität Ulm have defined the mechanism on which the wet chemical synthesis of graphene from graphite is based. They succeeded in solving the basic problem of how to separate an individual layer of graphene from a graphite crystal.

The team was able to successfully stabilize individual layers of carbon from graphite using chemical functionalization. By using computer simulations, the group was able to prove the mechanism. They succeeded in making the structure of the graphene manufactured using wet chemical methods visible at the atomic level with the help of electron beam microscopy.

Graphite company Archer Exploration has redefined its existing relationship with the University of Adelaide, by shifting developmental focus away from industrial graphite applications to more consumer-focused graphene-based products.

The collaboration will aim to develop and implement graphene and carbon-based materials for use in complex biosensing which can target applications in human health. Research will explore graphene-based materials for complex biosensing to generate patents with commercial applications and will combine AXE's graphite and graphene materials with the research and development capability of the university.

Saint Jean Carbon, a carbon science company focused on the development of green energy storage, creation and re-creation through the use of carbon materials, has announced that it has completed the design build of the research and development facility located in Oakville Ontario, Canada. The facility was established to process raw material directly to anode material and actual anodes in the near future.

The main purpose of the facility is to produce the very best quality graphite for a host of applications; lithium-ion batteries for electric cars, tools, cell phones, etc. As well as applications including, solar panels, graphene for use in fabric inks, wearable technologies, safety, health care and a vast array of other high tech applications.

Canada-based Leading Edge Materials (formerly Flinders Resources), a graphite mining company with principal assets located in Scandinavia, has announced the initiation of a new government-funded project entitled Graphene Energy which aims to apply graphene from the Company’s Woxna graphite facility to enhance the electrical conductivity and the mechanical strength of lithium ion battery anodes. Other project partners comprise 2D fab AB, VestaSi AB, Ã…ngström Advanced Battery Centre (Ã…ABC), Uppsala University (UU) and Mid Sweden University (MIUN).

LEM receives significant support from the Swedish Government through the agency Vinnova, which funds collaborative research between companies, universities, research institutes and public sector. With the initiation of this latest project, the Company is now collaborating in four Swedish government or European Commission supported projects, demonstrating the spectrum of potential markets for Woxna graphite. Two of which are graphene-focused: The Vinnova Graphene Energy Project Announced December 6th 2017, and the Vinnova Graphene Composite Project Graphene Modified Composites for Long-Term and High-Temperature Applications Announced 8th June, 2017.

Australia-based technology minerals company, Talga Resources, is actively developing graphene materials and graphene-based applications across many areas, including coatings, batteries, construction materials, composites and more.

Mark Thompson, Talga's managing director, was kind enough to update us on Talga's graphene program and answer a few questions we had.

Q: Thank you for this interview, Mark. Can you quickly update us on your graphite mine operation in Sweden?

Talga has over 20 years of graphite mining potential outlined in economic studies to date and currently extracts intermittently what it needs for scale up and testing purposes. Talga mined approximately 5,000 tonnes of graphite ore during 2015-16 trial mining operations. Further extraction is not required for now but permitting for the future larger scale operations is underway.

Archer Exploration, an Australia-based company focused on developing the company's advanced graphite, magnesite and cobalt projects in South Australia, recently entered into an agreement with the Australian Research Council (ARC) to collaborate on the ARC Graphene Research Hub. The aim of the ARC Graphene Research Hub is to provide leading knowledge, innovative research and development for the commercialization of graphene research.

The main aim of Archer’s work is the development of scalable graphene production processes for the company’s numerous graphite deposits. The ARC Graphene Research Hub is funded by the Australian Government, through the Australian Research Council’s Industrial Transformation Research Hubs scheme. Under the agreement between Archer and the other ARC Graphene Research Hub participants, Archer will participate in many projects including: Development of a series of graphene based products to establish lab/pilot scale graphene production, development of processes for the scalable production of high quality graphene and the optimization of production rate, yield, quality, purity, environmental impact, cost and sustainability and more.

First Graphite, the Australia-based graphite miner and graphene producer, recently announced that it has become a Tier 1 partner to the Australian Research Council Research Hub for Graphene Enabled Industry Transformation (ARC Graphene Research Hub).

The ARC Graphene Research HUB aims to provide knowledge, innovative research and commercial development of graphene technologies across broad areas. Under the Terms of the ARC Hub agreement FGR will focus on the areas of fire retardants, where the Company already has global licence to exploit the technology, development of conductive graphene coatings and development of graphene polymer composites.