September 2016

Haydale recently updated on the company's financial status, and has now announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Haydale Composite Solutions, has won a 310,000 pounds ($403,000 USD) contract extension from National Grid.

Haydale stated that the unit started designing and developing a lightweight composite gas transition piece, used to provide support and seal around steel gas transmission pipelines passing through walls. The company said that part of the contract was recognized in fiscal 2016, but that the majority of it is going to be recognized over the next 12 to 15 months.

Graphene has exciting potential for use in various implants and other medical applications, but since graphene is stiff and biological tissues are soft, there is a concern among scientists that a graphene implant could suddenly heat up and "fry" the surrounding cells when any power is applied to make it function. Researchers from MIT and Tsinghua University in China have simulated the way in which electrical power produces heat between a simple cell membrane and a single layer of graphene, to find if it is possible to prevent the heat buildup.

The team found that this is possible by using a very thin, in-between layer of water. By controlling the thickness of this in-between water layer, the collaborative team could carefully manipulate the quantity of heat transferred between biological tissue and graphene. They also fixed the critical power required to apply to the graphene layer, without causing the cell membrane to burn.

Zenyatta Ventures has announced the signing of a contribution agreement with the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC‐IRAP).

Zenyatta will receive technical advisory services and a financial contribution of up to $350,000 from NRC‐IRAP to support Zenyatta’s metallurgical program designed to provide data for the start of a pre‐feasibility phase on its Albany graphite project.

Talga Resources has announced that commissioning of all stages of the Phase 2 German pilot test facility has been successfully completed.

In April 2016, Talga announced the commissioning of its Phase 2 processing plant in Germany and has now provided further updates. The pilot test plant is currently configured so that approximately 76% of the input graphitic carbon reports to graphene products (FLG and GNP) and the remaining carbon reports to Talga’s building sector (micrographite) products.

Researchers from the University of Madras in India have managed to produce a monolayer or a few layers thick graphene nanosheets from graphite, using a simple, inexpensive and quick process without the use of strong oxidizing or reducing agents.

Liquid phase exfoliation methods are widely adopted for synthesizing graphene from graphite for their relative ease and cost-effectiveness. Still, the use of strong solvents and relatively low yield have turned out to be major drawbacks, limiting its utilization in the large-scale production of graphene. Now, the Madras team used ultrasound along with water, glacial acetic acid (CH3COOH - a mild solvent), and ethanol (C2H6O) to exfoliate graphite into graphene sheets.

Researchers from the ICFO, in collaboration with CIC nanoGUNE, Columbia University and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan, have been able to fabricate an all-graphene mid-infrared plasmon detector operating at room temperature, where a single graphene sheet serves simultaneously as the plasmonic generation medium and detector.

The team used an experimental design with two local gates—a split metal sheet located underneath the graphene—to fully tune the thermoelectric and plasmonic behavior of the graphene. In contrast to the conventional back gating through a thick SiO2 layer, the separate local gates not only induce free carriers in the graphene to act as a plasmonic channel, but also create a thermoelectric detector for the plasmons. The resulting device converts the conveniently available natural decay product of the plasmon, electronic heat, directly into a voltage through the thermoelectric effect.

On January 11-13 2017 Shanghai will be hosting the annual Printed and Flexible Electronics China conference. The Graphene-Info team will visit this event - so if anyone wishes to schedule a meeting - now is a great time to do so. The event organizers were kind enough to offer a 20% discount for Graphene-Info readers (to both visitors and exhibitors) - contact us for more information on how to get this discount.

This event aims to bring together industry professionals for a chance to be updated on the latest printed electronics advances, while getting a chance to network with industry leaders in China - and globally.

Mason Graphite, a Canadian mining company focused on the exploration and development of its 100%-owned Lac Gueret graphite project, announced that it closed a $28.8 million private placement.

The proceedings of this offering will be mostly used to fund the development of the Lac Gueret graphite mine - but around $1 million CAD will also be used to increase Mason Graphite's equity in Group NanoXplore.

Researchers from the Graphene Flagship have used layered materials including graphene, boron nitride and a transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) to create all electrical quantum LEDs which can emit single photons. The devices are said to have the potential to act as on-chip photon sources in quantum information applications.

The LEDs are made of thin layers of different materials, stacked to form a heterostructure. Electrical current is injected into the device, tunnelling from single layer graphene, through a tunnel barrier of a few layers of boron nitride and into a mono- or bilayer of a transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD), such as tungsten diselenide (WSe2). In this layer, electrons recombine with holes to emit single photons.

Italy-based Directa Plus announced the launch of GRAFYLON 3D, a graphene-enhanced filament for 3D printing. The new product has been developed in collaboration with FILOALFA, a division of Ciceri de Mondel that specializes in producing filaments used in 3D printing, and is now commercially available. RAFYLON® 3D is available starting today for purchase directly from the FILOALFA website and from FILOALFA’s dealers.

GRAFYLON 3D is a new generation of polylactic acid-based (PLA) filament containing Directa’s graphene-based product. In 3D printing, hundreds or thousands of layers of material are printed layer upon layer using various materials, most commonly plastic polymers such as PLA filaments. The inclusion of the company's Graphene Plus enhances the filament’s properties, while reportedly maintaining a competitive price. During testing, the following improvements in performance compared with non-graphene-based 3D filaments were observed: