NGI - Page 3

In January 2017 the world's lightest mechanical chronograph watch was unveiled in Geneva, Switzerland, made with an innovative graphene-enhanced composite material. Now, the research behind the project has been published. The unique watch was a result of a collaboration between the University of Manchester, Richard Mille Watches and McLaren Applied Technologies.

The RM 50-03 watch was made using a unique composite incorporating graphene to create a strong but lightweight case that contains the watch mechanism, which weighed around 40 grams in total, including the strap. The collaboration explored the methods of correctly aligning graphene within a composite to make the most of the material's superlative properties of mechanical stiffness and strength whilst negating the need for the addition of other, weightier materials.

The Center for Process Innovation (CPI) will be collaborating with the National Composites Center (NCC) to develop advanced lightweight materials. The project, known as ‘Enhanced structural composites’ (ECOi), is evaluating the functionality and applicability of new graphene-enhanced materials in a variety of industries.

The University of Manchester will be consulting on the ECOi project at their National Graphene Institute, to generate and test a variety of new graphene composites that have improved functional properties compared to current materials.

The Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) and the National Graphene Institute (NGI) at The University of Manchester have published a joint paper on the potential of graphene in aerospace, or more precisely the potential market opportunities available to UK aerospace companies. Organizations that also worked on the paper included the University of Central Lancashire, the Center for Process Innovation, QinetiQ, Morson Projects Limited and Haydale with input from Ekosgen.

The safety and performance properties of aircraft could be significantly improved by incorporating atomically-thin graphene into existing materials used to build planes, while the reduced weight of the material could have a positive impact on the fuel efficiency of the aircraft and, as result, the environment.

Researchers at The University of Manchester and the NGI have shown how graphene and boron nitride can be used for observing nanomaterials in liquids, by creating a ‘petri-dish’ of sorts.

Scanning / transmission electron microscopy (S/TEM) is one of only few techniques that allows imaging and analysis of individual atoms. However, the S/TEM instrument requires a high vacuum to protect the electron source and to prevent electron scattering from molecular interactions. Several studies have previously revealed that the structure of functional materials at room temperature in a vacuum can significantly different from that in their normal liquid environment. So, it is important to be able to study the structure at the required state.

The University of Manchester has teamed up with British sportswear brand Inov-8 to become the world's first company to incorporate graphene into running and fitness shoes. Laboratory tests have shown that the rubber outsoles of the newly developed shoes, planned to arrive on the market in 2018, are stronger, more stretchy and more resistant to wear.

Michael Price, inov-8 Product and Marketing Director, said: Off-road runners and fitness athletes live at the sporting extreme and need the stickiest outsole grip possible to optimize their performance, be that when running on wet trails or working out in sweaty gyms. For too long, they have had to compromise this need for grip with the knowledge that such rubber wears down quickly... Now, utilizing the groundbreaking properties of graphene, there is no compromise. The new rubber we have developed with the National Graphene Institute at The University of Manchester allows us to smash the limits of grip. Our lightweight G-Series shoes deliver a combination of traction, stretch and durability never seen before in sports footwear. 2018 will be the year of the world’s toughest grip.

The NGI at The University of Manchester and William Blythe have announced the start of a new joint research project, targeting the development of high capacity graphene-related materials for use in the electric vehicle market.

The project will combine William Blythe’s core capabilities in inorganic synthetic chemistry and their graphene-oxide with the specialist experience of The University of Manchester’s Professor Robert Dryfe and the energy storage team at the NGI.

Researchers at the National Graphene Institute and School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science at The University of Manchester have developed an ultra-thin membrane using graphene-oxide sheets, that were assembled in a way that they were able to completely remove various organic dyes, dissolved in methanol, which were as small as a nanometre. This is exciting as GO membranes were once thought to be permeable only to aqueous solutions, but the researchers developed a new form of graphene oxide membrane that can filter organic solvents.

In the newly developed ultrathin membranes, graphene-oxide sheets are assembled in such a way that pinholes formed during the assembly are interconnected by graphene nanochannels, which produces an atomic-scale sieve allowing the large flow of solvents through the membrane. When used to filter Cognac and whisky, the membrane permitted alcohol to pass through but trapped the larger molecules that gives the whisky its color. Professor Nair, which led the group, said that "the clear whisky smells similar to the original whisky but we are not allowed to drink it in the lab, however it was a funny Friday night experiment!

The National Graphene Institute at the University of Manchester has joined forces with the NPL to develop a guide, as part of NPL's good practice guide series, that conveys "a detailed description of how to determine the key structural properties of graphene, so that the graphene community can adopt a common metrological approach that allows the comparison of commercially available graphene materials. This guide brings together the accepted metrology in this area".

The guide, titled Characterization of the Structure of Graphene, follows last month's release of the NPL's work on the first ISO (International Organization for Standardization) graphene standard. It describes the high-accuracy and precision required for verification of material properties and enables the development of other faster quality control techniques in the future. The guide is intended to form a bedrock for future interlaboratory comparisons and international standards.

A collaborative project between Oxford Instrument, the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the National Graphene Institute (NGI) at University of Manchester for a turnkey quantum Hall system for graphene characterization and primary resistance metrology has been successfully completed.

The project has been partially funded by the Innovate UK for development of commercial measurement system for nanotechnology applications, reducing operational costs, time and complexity. The quantum measurement system operates at cryogen free low magnetic fields and will enable primary resistance calibrations with unprecedented accuracies to be used by the national (metrology) laboratories and indusrial companies.

JTX (officially Shandong Prosperous Star Optoelectronics Co) demonstrated its graphene-enhanced LED lighting bulbs at the Hong Kong lighting fair. These LED lighting devices use graphene coating that aid in heat dissipation and thus contribute to longer lifetime and better efficiency.

JTX is a relatively new company (established in May 2014 in China) that is involved with the entire LED lighting value chain (from LED chips and filaments to complete light bulbs). In July 2016 JTX was merged with Graphene Lighting PLC that developed the graphene lighting technology in collaboration with Manchester University and the NGI.