University of Manchester - Page 13

The National Graphene Institute (NGI) recently signed a collaborative partnership with Haydale to accelerate the commercialization of applications. Haydale has been working closely with the NGI, and has now entered into a formal partnership which aims to leverage each party’s particular expertise in order to seek opportunities to develop and commercialize graphene products and applications.

This collaboration will likely see the NGI utilizing the Haydale patented process incorporated in its R&D plasma reactor for research into the functionalization of graphene and other nanomaterials. It will also look into the use, process and identification of nanomaterials to enhance performance in composites, sensors, printable inks, supercapacitators, rubbers and elastomers.

Scientists at The University of Manchester, along with a team at Shandong University, have designed a graphene-based electrical nano-device that could substantially increase the energy efficiency of fossil fuel-powered cars.

The nano-device, known as a 'ballistic rectifier', can convert heat which would otherwise be wasted from the car exhaust and engine body into a usable electrical current. The recovered energy can then be used to power additional automotive features such as air conditioning and power steering, or be stored in the car battery.

Researchers from the University of Groningen and the University of Manchester have directly detected the Peltier effect in graphene that is either one or two atoms thick. The Peltier effect is an example of Thermoelectrics: the field of study that deals with situations in which a temperature difference creates an electric potential, or vice versa. In this effect, a temperature difference appears when a voltage is applied between two electrodes connected to a semiconductor material. The team unambiguously showed that the effect can be switched from heating to cooling by tuning the type and density of the charge carriers inside the material.

The researchers used graphene because of its 2D nature, and graphene is a wonderful candidate for demonstrating a fully tuneable Peltier effect. The electrical contacts to graphene allowed to electrically control the cooling and heating via the Peltier effect, and to detect this cooling and heating, the researchers constructed sensitive nanoscale thermometers that directly measured the temperature of electrons in graphene. This practical approach is said to be the first of its kind for 2D materials, and its sensitivity is a thousand times better than that of its predecessors, down to 0.1 milliKelvin.

A study coordinated by the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste (SISSA) and the University of Trieste examines how effective graphene oxide flakes are at interfering with excitatory synapses, which could prove useful in new treatments for diseases like epilepsy.

Researchers at the University of Manchester and the University of Castilla -la Mancha have also taken part in this work, that may have discovered a new approach to modulating synapses using graphene oxide. The method uses graphene nano-ribbons (flakes) which buffer activity of synapses simply by being present. The researchers administered aqueous solutions of graphene flakes to cultured neurons in 'chronic' exposure conditions, repeating the operation every day for a week. Analyzing functional neuronal electrical activity, they then traced the effect on synapses.

The Graphene Flagship, Europe's €1 billion graphene-targeted research initiative, announced the creation of a new Work Package devoted to Biomedical Technologies. This initiative is led by the University of Manchester (UK), and ICREA. The new Work Package will focus on the development of implants based on graphene and 2D-materials that have therapeutic functionalities for specific clinical outcomes, in disciplines such as neurology, ophthalmology and surgery. It will include research in three main areas: Materials Engineering; Implant Technology & Engineering; and Functionality and Therapeutic Efficacy. The objective is to explore novel implants with therapeutic capacity that will be further developed in the next phases of the Graphene Flagship.

The Materials Engineering area will be devoted to the production, characterization, chemical modification and optimization of graphene materials that will be adopted for the design of implants and therapeutic element technologies. Its results will be applied by the Implant Technology and Engineering area on the design of implant technologies. Several teams will work in parallel on retinal, cortical, and deep brain implants, as well as devices to be applied in the periphery nerve system. Finally, The Functionality and Therapeutic Efficacy area activities will center on development of devices that, in addition to interfacing the nerve system for recording and stimulation of electrical activity, also have therapeutic functionality.

According to The Times, the UK is set to launch an investigation relating to the NGI and BGT Materials. The inquiry will follow concerns that lucrative information could be passed to China through BGT, a British company majority-owned by a Taiwanese businessman. It was even claimed that academics refuse to work at the £61 million National Graphene Institute (NGI) due to these concerns.

The NGI and BGT refute these claims. The NGI stated that: "The University of Manchester has thoroughly investigated all of the claims and allegations put to it by the Sunday Times and has found no evidence whatsoever that BGT Materials or Bluestone has had access, outside of any confidentiality undertaking, to confidential research programmes or that there were insufficient safeguards to protect the University’s Intellectual Property.

Researchers at the University of Manchester have observed, for the first time, electrons in graphene that move like in a very viscous liquid, which may prompt a new approach to fundamental physics. The possibility of a highly viscous flow of electrons in metals was predicted several decades ago, but despite many efforts was never observed before.

Although it is believed that electrons in graphene can move 'ballistically', like bullets scattering only at graphene boundaries or other imperfections, it seems that the reality is not quite so simple; It was observed that the electric current in graphene did not flow along the applied electric field, as in other materials, but traveled backwards forming whirlpools where circular currents appeared. Such behavior is familiar for conventional liquids (such as water).

The University of Manchester and The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology declared a collaborative research program covering three innovative projects in graphene and 2D materials: composites, sensors and membranes.

The projects will be led by faculty members from both research institutions, and will respectively explore the development of novel low-density graphene-based foams for various engineering applications, inkjet-printed graphene micro-sensors for energy and defense applications, and graphene-enabled ion exchange membranes for desalination. 

A team of researchers at the University of Manchester has shown that graphene could be used to control the frequency of terahertz lasers, opening up the possibility of a new area of technology using terahertz lasers in improved scanning systems, X-ray replacements, and dramatically increased internet bandwidth.

The researchers explain that graphene can assist in creating a platform to electronically control devices and flexibly engineer device output. This new alternative method of scanning materials could dramatically improve the efficiency and accuracy of analyzing materials in the pharmaceutical, security and agricultural industries. The scientists explain that current terahertz devices do not allow for tuneable properties, and a new device would have to be made each time requirements changed. Graphene, however, can allow for terahertz devices to be switched on and off, as well as altering their state.

Researchers at the University of Manchester have demonstrated that graphene can simplify the production of heavy water and help clean nuclear waste by filtering different isotopes of hydrogen. The process could assist in producing heavy water for nuclear power plants with ten times less energy, making it simpler and cheaper.

Membranes made from graphene can act as a sieve, separating protons nuclei of hydrogen from heavier nuclei of hydrogen isotope deuterium. Deuterium is in wide use in analytical and chemical tracing technologies and, also, as heavy water required in thousands of tons for operation of nuclear power stations. The heaviest isotope, tritium, is radioactive and needs to be safely removed as a by-product of electricity generation at nuclear fission plants. Future nuclear technology is based on fusion of the two heavy isotopes.