University of Manchester - Page 3

Researchers from the University of California Santa Cruz, University of Manchester and Japan's International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics and National Institute for Materials Science have used a scanning tunnelling microscope to create and probe single and coupled electrostatically defined graphene quantum dots, to investigate the magnetic-field responses of artificial relativistic nanostructures.

Trapped electrons traveling in circular loops at extreme speeds inside graphene quantum dots are highly sensitive to external magnetic fields and could be used as novel magnetic field sensors with unique capabilities. Although graphene electrons do not move at the speed of light, they exhibit the same energy-momentum relationship as photons and can be described as "ultra-relativistic." When these electrons are confined in a quantum dot, they travel at high velocity in circular loops around the edge of the dot.

A team of researchers, led by Professor Aravind Vijayaraghavan based in the National Graphene Institute (NGI), have produced 3D particles made of graphene that come in various interesting shapes, using a variation of the vortex ring effect. These particles have also been shown to be exceptionally efficient in adsorbing contaminants from water, thereby purifying it.

Optical and SEM images of donut, spherical and jellyfish morphologies of GO-VR

The researchers have shown that the formation of these graphene particles is governed by a complex interplay between different forces such as viscosity, surface tension, inertia and electrostatics. Prof Vijayaraghavan said: “We have undertaken a systematic study to understand and explain the influence of various parameters and forces involved in the particle formation. Then, by tailoring this process, we have developed very efficient particles for adsorptive purification of contaminants from water”.

Nationwide Engineering Research and Development (NERD) has raised £8 million (over USD$9.5 million) in seed funding as it looks to commercialize a graphene-enhanced building material called Concretene. The funding came from the venture capital firm LocalGlobe.

NERD, a company founded by Nationwide Engineering Group, developed Concretene with the goal of creating a stronger and more sustainable product than traditional concrete by adding a graphene formulation into the hydration process of concrete development. NERD said that when deployed on active construction projects, Concretene was as much as 30-50% stronger than standard concrete.

First Graphene has announced it has secured grant funding, in conjunction with the University of Manchester (UoM), for the next stage of research into commercializing graphene-enhanced supercapacitor materials.

Awarded through Innovate UK’s “Accelerated Knowledge Transfer to Innovate” scheme (AKT2I),
the grant will be used to fund a project intended to accelerate development and optimization of a
graphene-metal-oxide slurry for manufacturing high energy density supercapacitors.

The University of Manchester has entered a partnership with Abu Dhabi-based Khalifa University of Science and Technology, with the aim to deliver a funding boost to graphene innovation. Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, President & Vice-Chancellor of The University of Manchester, and Professor Sir John O’Reilly, President of Khalifa University  officially signed a contract between the two institutions during a VIP visit by a Manchester delegation to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 

This international partnership will further accelerate Manchester and Abu Dhabi’s research and innovation into graphene and other 2D materials. The Research & Innovation Center for Graphene and 2D Materials (RIC-2D), based in Khalifa University, is part of a strategic investment program supported by the Government of Abu Dhabi, UAE. This partnership will expedite the development of the RIC-2D at Khalifa University as well as help building capability in graphene and 2D materials in collaboration with Graphene@Manchester, a community that includes the academic–led National Graphene Institute (NGI) and the commercially-focused Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC), a pioneering facility already backed by the Abu Dhabi-based renewable energy company Masdar.

The Digital University of Kerala (DUK) has signed Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) with four universities in the UK: Oxford, Edinburgh, Manchester and Siegen, for collaboration in the field of graphene.

It was noted that the effort of state government is to start industries based on new generation technologies, and the present MoUs are expected to further strengthen Kerala’s ability to develop cutting-edge research and develop a knowledge economy in the sector.

An international team of scientists, led by Dr. Marcelo Lozada-Hidalgo based at the National Graphene Institute (NGI), used graphene as an electrode to measure both the electrical force applied on water molecules and the rate at which these break in response to such force. The researchers found that water breaks exponentially faster in response to stronger electrical forces.

The researchers believe that this fundamental understanding of interfacial water could be used to design better catalysts to generate hydrogen fuel from water. Dr Marcelo Lozada-Hidalgo said: “We hope that the insights from this work will be of use to various communities, including physics, catalysis, and interfacial science and that it can help design better catalysts for green hydrogen production”.

First Graphene will work with the Breedon Group, Morgan Sindall Construction & Infrastructure and the University of Manchester to develop a new reduced-CO₂ graphene-enhanced cement. The consortium is currently formulating the cement using varying doses of First Graphene’s PureGRAPH graphene-enhanced grinding aid. The project received a research grant from the UK government earlier in 2022.

First Graphene says that the study involves one of the largest commercial trials of its kind to date globally.

Scientists from Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, in collaboration with teams at Manchester University and UC Irvine,  have shown that an electronic fluid can flow through materials without any electrical resistance, thereby perfectly eliminating a fundamental source of resistance that forms the ultimate limit for ballistic electrons. This result could open the door to improved electronic devices that do not heat up as much as existing technologies.

When electrons flow in electrical wires, they lose part of their energy, which is wasted as heat. This heating is a major problem in everyday electronics. The heating occurs because electrical conductors are never perfect and have a resistance for the flow of electrical currents. Typically, this resistance originates from the scattering of the flowing electrons by imperfections in the host material. But it stands to reason that a perfect conductor, devoid of any imperfections, would have zero resistance. However, even if the conductor is perfectly clean and free from imperfections, the resistance does not vanish. Instead, a new source of resistance emerges, known as the Landauer-Sharvin resistance. In an electrical conductor, electrons flow in quantum channels, much like cars in highway lanes. Similar to highway lanes, each electronic channel has a finite capacity to conduct electrons, limited by the quantum of conductance. For a given conductor, the number of quantum channels is finite and determined by its physical width. Thus, even a perfect electronic device, devoid of any imperfections, will never have infinite conductance. It will always have resistance. In the absence of interactions between electrons, this Landauer-Sharvin resistance is unavoidable, putting a fundamental lower bound on the heating of computer chips, which becomes even more severe as transistors become smaller.

Scientists from The University of Manchester, Tsinghua University in China and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) recently reported that graphene can facilitate gold extraction from waste containing only trace amounts of gold (down to billionth of a percent).

This surprising application of graphene was described to work quite straightforwardly: add graphene into a solution containing traces of gold and, after a few minutes, pure gold appears on graphene sheets, with no other chemicals or energy input involved. After this you can extract your pure gold by simply burning the graphene off. The research shows that 1 gram of graphene can be sufficient for extracting nearly 2 grams of gold.