Venture Capital fund Excell Partners announced it invested in Graphene Devices. The amount was not disclosed. Graphene Devices has been previously awarded with over $600,000 in several projects in 2010 by the US federal and state authorities.

Graphene Devices, founded in 2009, explores novel uses for Graphene and ways to optimize its production. The company is using a process developed at the University of Buffalo.

Researchers from Georgia State University (GSU) and the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) developed a new technique to study the spin characteristics of electrons in graphene, which could move us closed to graphene-based Spintronics devices.

The research team detected spin-resonance using electrical resistance, by illuminating the device by microwaves (which causes the spin-splitting energy to equalize). The device’s resistance is altered when the microwave energy is absorbed by the device. This effect is small and difficult to measure normally, but by using Graphene, enabled them to actually witness this effect.

Researchers from NIST have been using combined optical techniques (internal photoemission or IPE and spectroscopic ellipsometry, or SE) to determine graphene's work function and the band alignment of a graphene-insulator-semiconductor structure.

IPE is used to measure the energy of electrons emitted from materials in order to determine binding energies, while in SE, broadband light sources are shone upon a material, and optical properties are ascertained from the reflectivity.

Researchers developed a new sponge-like structure from graphene that has very good absorbance properties - especially useful to remove petroleum products (including kerosene, pump oil, fats, and organic solvents) from seawater. The sponge absorbed up to 86 times its weight (!) - which is higher than all common absorbents.

Using simple heating causes the absorbed hydrocarbons to be recovered (with a 99% yield) - which means that you can reuse the sponge up to 10 times.

Graphene has so many interesting potential applications, it may become a very lucrative market soon. A lot of people have asked for a guide on investing in graphene related companies, and we're proud to deliver. It's not easy to invest in graphene as virtually all pure-play companies are small startups, but there are some interesting options for people who believe in graphene's future and want to invest in it.

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AzoNano posted an interesting interview with Graphene Lab's Dr. Elena Polyakova. Elena discusses Graphene and its applications, and the business of Graphene Labs and Graphene Supermarket (their online graphene product store).

Elena says that their most popular product is 3D graphene foam. Graphene foams have a high surface area and porosity, making them ideal for energy-related applications. They also sell a lot of graphene on dielectric substrates, which are ideal for photovoltaic applications and graphene transistors.

Researchers from Manchester University have used a new side-view imaging method to individually visualize graphene sheets in a layered insulated stack of sheets. They found out that each graphene layer in such a structure is perfectly aligned, even with 10 layers. This was a surprise as they expected the graphene to be distorted.

This means that stacking graphene sheets does not degrade their properties. This means that you can stack graphene to create 3D chips - which will have a massive improvement in processing speed or storage capacity compared to a 2D chip.