The University of Cambridge has announced a rapid and low-cost method of printing conductive ink using graphene and other materials, which might facilitate the manufacturing of cost effective printed electronics, sensors and more.

Morgan Advanced Materials recently participated in the first official experiment conducted in a novel collaboration between industry and academia, which has taken place at the University of Manchester. 

Morgan Advanced Materials teamed up last year with The University of Manchester to explore the potential of graphene, with a full-time team based at the University's National Graphene Institute (NGI). This project is focused on scaling up Manchester's patented technology to produce graphene by a process that has molecules driven between the layers of a graphite electrode to separate them.

University of Manchester Nobel laureate Sir Kostya Novoselov has been awarded a £4m grant to research 2D materials. The grant will allow a team of UK academics, led by Sir Kostya, to further investigate the properties of 2D materials, which could pave the way for designer materials to meet the demands of industry, and incorporate graphene in various commercial applications.

Several sources indicate that Chinese telecommunications equipment giant Huawei is expected to announce an investment in graphene in a deal to deepen scientific collaboration between China and Britain.

Huawei is said to invest millions of pounds into a research project led by The University of Manchester's National Graphene Institute. The research project will aim to examine prospective applications of graphene to the information and communications technology sectors.

Researchers at Rice University found that graphene nano-coils possess natural electromagnetic properties and can help in scaling down electronics by possibly replacing common solenoids (wires coiled around a metallic core that produce a magnetic field when carrying current, turning them into electromagnets. Solenoids also serve as inductors, primary components in electric circuits that regulate current, and in their smallest form are part of integrated circuits). 

The researchers discovered that when a voltage is applied, current will flow around the helical path and produce a magnetic field, as it does in macro inductor-solenoids. These graphene coil-structures are even found to form naturally during graphite growth, so they don't require complicated configuration or assembly. The researchers believe it should be possible to isolate graphene coil formations from crystals of graphitic carbon (graphene in bulk form), but enticing graphene sheets to grow in a spiral would allow for better control of its properties. 

Researchers at Binghamton University have demonstrated an eco-friendly process that enables unprecedented spatial control over the electrical properties of graphene oxide, which is said to have the potential to revolutionize flexible electronics, solar cells and biomedical instruments.

By using the probe of an atomic force microscope to trigger a local chemical reaction, the scientists showed that electrically conductive features as small as 4 nanometers can be patterned into individual graphene oxide sheets. This approach makes it possible to draw nanoscale electrically-conductive features in atomically-thin insulating sheets with the highest spatial control reported so far, and unlike standard methods for manipulating the properties of graphene oxide, the process can be implemented under ambient conditions and is environmentally-benign, making it a promising step towards the practical integration of graphene oxide into future technologies.

Nanomedical Diagnostics, which declared the commercialization of a graphene biosensor in September 2015, announced the completion of a Series A financing round of $1.6 million. The funding round will enable the company to commercially release AGILE Research, its new label-free, quantitative, affordable research tool for small molecule and protein analysis. The company is also using the funds to lay the foundation for AGILE Lyme investigational product evaluation and market clearance.

Nanomedical Diagnostics states that it has achieved excellent progress in only 20 months, and that its current focus is finalizing AGILE Research product design. The company will be evaluating its performance with the CDC and Stanford University this fall and expects to launch the product early next year for commercial use to study proteins of interest.

An international research team, which included scientists from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Oklahoma State University, and Shenyang National Lab for Materials Science, showed that graphene can act as a promising surface coating that can be used to minimize metallic corrosion under harsh microbial conditions, and graphene coating offers 100-fold improvement in corrosion resistance compared to commercial polymer coatings available in the market while being nearly 4000 times thinner than several commercial coatings.

The researchers investigated how the microbial communities that colonize the protection system can affect the corrosion rates. Furthermore, they have used the graphene coating as a benchmark to compare to other popular polymer coatings such as Parylene and Polyurethane. Those coatings were initially promising, but failed due to various reasons including microbial attack fermentation, acid production etc. and the non-conformity of hand-applied coatings. The graphene coated Ni, however, maintained its integrity without noticeable surface corrosion.

2D Carbon, formed to commercialize graphene research conducted at the University of Houston’s Center for Advanced Materials, has been listed on the Chinese stock exchange. 2D Carbon was created in 2011 by Peng Peng, a former research scientist at the Center for Advanced Materials. It was listed on China’s stock market for high-tech startups.

The company focuses on mass-production of large-scale graphene transparent conductive film, as well as research, development and technical support for applied graphene technology.

The Canadian Grafoid, along with NAATBatt International from the United States and Phantoms Foundation of Spain, have announced the launch of GO Foundation (Graphene Organization Foundation), a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting graphene innovation and commercialization.

GO Foundation supports start-up graphene entrepreneurs, scientific innovators and small and medium enterprises engaged in materials and product development. The foundation's aim is to assist entrepreneurs in bringing their inventions to market. It accelerates the pace of adoption by businesses of materials and products enhanced with graphene; offers a neutral collaborative environment to develop strategies and initiatives, and offers a clustering approach to define graphene supply chains to speed the adoption of graphene in advanced materials and manufacturing.