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Researchers from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new graphene based anode that can be charged or discharged 10 times faster than conventional graphite anodes currently used in today’s lithium-ion batteries. To create the new anode material, the researchers took a sheet of graphene-oxide paper and then introduced defects (using a laser or a camera flash) on the material.

The graphene paper, after being damaged, has expanded five-fold in thickness, which means that there were large voids between the graphene sheets. The lithium ions can use the cracks in the paper to quickly traverse the entire sheet - which means faster charges or discharges of the battery.

Researchers from the University of Arkansas have managed to study and control the transition from graphite to graphene. Normally this transition can be random, but the new technique (called electrostatic manipulation scanning tunneling microscopy) stabilizes the transition and study it.

The new technique uses a moving surface, unlike traditional methods that use a static surface. Using this technique, the researchers can tell how much force it takes to create graphene and how much distance exists between graphene and the graphite as well as to track the total energy of the process.

Focus Metals announced it has loaned $500,000 to Grafoid (of which it owns 40%). This payment will be used by Grafoid to pay an unnamed foreign university for a patent pending technology relating to exfoliation of graphite using raw graphite rock.

Northern Graphite signed an agreement with Grafen Chemical Industries to supply +48 mesh and +32 mesh extra large flake graphite for graphene research. The two companies will also collaborate to develop intellectual property rights. Northern will retain a 50% interest in the North American patent rights to any products and processes developed by Grafen.

Grafen developed a novel fabrication method allowing it to synthesize graphene of excellent quality and with considerable yield. Its graphene production process is a highly modified implementation of the conventional graphite oxide manufacturing technique and eliminates known major drawbacks such as extreme disruption of crystal structure of precursor graphite causing low product qualities of electrical conductivity, mechanical performance etc.

A team of researchers from the University of Cambridge in the UK demonstrated ink-jet printing as a viable method for large area production of graphene devices. The team produced a graphene-based ink by liquid phase exfoliation of graphite in N-Methylpyrrolidone, and used it to print thin-film transistors. The team also printed transparent conductive patterns.

This research paves the way towards all-printed flexible and transparent graphene devices, on any substrate.

Researchers from the Sejong University in South Korea developed a graphite patterning method based on scanning probe lithography (SPL) - performed in a controlled gas environment. SPL is usually done in air, but this prohibits uniform patterning. The new method could enable better graphite or graphene patterning.

The team reports that methyl alcohol (MA) facilitates graphite etching and gives a line width as narrow as 3 nm. Due to its low surface tension and highly adsorptive behavior, MA provides advantages for narrow line width and high speed etching operation.

Northern Graphite Corporation announced that they managed to produce graphene on a test basis using large flake graphite from the Company's Bissett Creek project in Northern Ontario. The company says that their large flake graphite was evaluated as a source material for making graphene by an eminent professor in the field at the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is doing research making graphene sheets larger than 30cm2 in size using the graphene oxide methodology.

The tests indicated that graphene made from Northern's jumbo flake is superior to Chinese powder and large flake graphite in terms of size, higher electrical conductivity, lower resistance and greater transparency.

Stacking several separate layers of graphene is useful for several applications, such as supercapacitors. But stacked graphene forms a graphite-like mass, which makes it less useful. Researchers from Monash University in Australia discovered that keeping graphene wet can keep it from stacking.

The team got their idea from examining Graphene Paper - which is made by filter graphene suspended in water. The water acts as a spacer between the individual graphene layers.

Researchers from the University of Technology in Sydney Australia developed a new method to produce graphene - by creating a deformation in graphite after purification and filtration processes. They call the new material 'synthetic graphene' and say that the material they produced in this synthetic method and thermal process is tough, hard, and bendable.

Researchers from Rice University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology today developed a new method to produce very pure graphene. The idea is to dissolve graphite in chlorosulphonic acid, a common industrial solvent. Using new methods to measure the aggregation of the dissolved graphene flakes, individual graphene layers in the graphite peeled apart spontaneously.

The team was able to dissolve as much as two grams of graphene per liter of acid to produce solutions at least 10 times more concentrated than existing methods.