Graphene-Info: the graphene experts

Skeleton Technologies is accelerating its expansion in the United States as demand for AI infrastructure strains power grids nationwide. As part of this expansion, the company recently announced the opening of a new engineering facility in Houston, Texas.

Data center power consumption in the U.S. is projected to more than double by the end of the decade. AI data centers are not only energy-intensive but also have highly variable power profiles, creating sharp demand spikes that grid infrastructure is not designed to handle. This strain increases the risk of outages and forces utilities to build more power plants and upgrade equipment, which can drive higher electricity prices. Skeleton’s solutions enable AI data centers to smooth out their power demand profiles and reduce energy consumption by up to 45 percent. As a result, Skeleton significantly reduces the burden that AI data centers place on the electric grid and enables data center operators to extract more computing power with a lower energy footprint.

Researchers from China Jiliang University, Hangzhou Papermate Science &Technology Co., Xi'an International University, Fuzhou University and Zhejiang University of Science and Technology have designed a family of BC₂N/graphene heterostructures as promising anode materials for lithium‑ion batteries, addressing a key bottleneck in energy‑storage performance.

Top views of the (a) II-HN, (b) II-HB, (c) II-HH, (d) III-HB, (e) III-HN, and (f) III-HH heterostructures. Image from: RSC Advances

Conventional LIBs rely on graphite anodes, which offer a theoretical capacity of about 372 mAh g⁻¹ and are thermodynamically well matched to carbon‑based chemistries. However, graphite suffers from relatively low specific capacity and slow charging/discharging rates, making it increasingly inadequate for high‑power applications such as electric vehicles and grid‑scale storage. Graphene‑like 2D materials have emerged as alternatives, but single‑layer graphene is prone to Li‑adsorption loss due to weak interlayer π–π interactions and reduced intercalation capacity compared with few‑layer configurations. The team combined first‑principles calculations with structural design to create six heterostructures formed by integrating graphene with BC₂N‑II and BC₂N‑III monolayers, generating combinations labelled II‑HN, II‑HB, II‑HH, III‑HN, III‑HB, and III‑HH. Unlike the pristine BC₂N‑II and BC₂N‑III sheets - which are energetically unfavorable for Li adsorption - the BC₂N/graphene heterostructures show stable Li‑atom adsorption sites at the interface, enabling reversible Li intercalation.

Swiss deeptech startup Chiral has secured $12 million in seed funding to commercialize its robotic platform designed for wafer-scale integration of nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes and graphene. The round was led by Crane Venture Partners, with participation from Quantonation, HCVC, and Founderful, as well as public funding from Innosuisse.

With this new fundinf, Chiral plans to enhance its automation capabilities, increase throughput, and demonstrate system reliability across real-world industrial environments. The goal is to enable companies to incorporate nanomaterials as seamlessly as they currently incorporate silicon.

Researchers from India's CSIR-Central Scientific Instruments Organization have reported a systematic study on the role of graphene-based interfacial engineering in flexible all-inorganic perovskite solar cells.

The team incorporated reduced graphene oxide (rGO) into SnO₂ and TiO₂ electron transport layers, forming graphene-modified metal-oxide interfaces that enhance interfacial conductivity and suppress trap-assisted recombination. This approach also mitigates hysteresis and improves mechanical resilience, contributing to a power conversion efficiency of 19.2% and retention of over 90% efficiency after 1,000 bending cycles at a 5 mm radius.

Grapherry, a Chicago-based clean-tech materials company, has announced that it is expanding partnerships with battery companies to evaluate its waste-derived graphene for use in battery anode materials. The ongoing collaborations focus on assessing performance, scalability, and manufacturability of graphene-enabled anodes for next-generation energy storage systems.

Grapherry produces high-quality, cost-effective graphene from carbon waste using an IP-protected, continuous manufacturing platform designed for scale. The company’s approach addresses key industry challenges related to graphene adoption in batteries, including material consistency, supply scalability, and cost control.

Researchers from Columbia University, Brown University, University of Texas at Austin and the National Institute for Materials Science have observed a unique quantum phase transition in bilayer graphene, where an excitonic superfluid abruptly becomes an insulator, offering strong evidence for an interaction-driven exciton solid and a realistic pathway to a supersolid phase in a solid-state platform. 

One of the defining features of Bose–Einstein condensation is superfluidity, a state in which a bosonic fluid flows without viscosity or dissipation; this behavior has been established in systems ranging from liquid helium to engineered platforms such as bilayer excitons and ultracold atoms. Theoretically, strong interactions within a condensate can stabilize an even more exotic ground state - a supersolid - that combines the crystalline density modulation of a solid with the phase coherence and frictionless flow of a superfluid, but realizing such a state in a naturally occurring material without an externally imposed lattice potential has remained an outstanding challenge in condensed-matter physics.

INBRAIN Neuroelectronics has announced a step forward in its long‑running collaboration with Merck, highlighting a new bidirectional, “rice‑sized” graphene BCI chip and a fresh push toward commercialization, including a speech‑decoding clinical trial.

The collaboration between INBRAIN and Merck was first established in 2021, with the goal of developing graphene‑based bioelectronic therapies for serious chronic diseases. This framework is now shifting from high‑level R&D into product‑oriented development, with Merck signaling commercialization intent around INBRAIN’s BCI‑Tx platform and its latest device iteration.