Talga Resources recently signed a collaboration agreement with JenaBatteries to jointly explore the use of Talga’s graphene products in flow batteries. Under the Agreement, Talga will formulate and supply graphene for testing in components producing JenaBatteries’ patented polymer flow battery, a type of redox flow battery suitable for commercial scale and grid applications.

Talga’s graphene will aim to reduce manufacturing costs and increase the performance and longevity of the flow battery components by utilizing graphene’s properties of conductivity, chemical inertness and impermeability.

Researchers at the University of Sussex in England have found that a hybrid material consisting of silver nanowires that are linked together with graphene could be a strong contender in the battle to replace indium tin oxide as the transparent conductor in touch screen displays.

This material is said to be much cheaper to use since only a small amount of it is necessary in order to attain the properties of ITO. The graphene, according to the team, acts as a linker between the nanowires, which means that the network does not need to be dense. The graphene is deposited onto a sprayed network of nanowires by film deposition.

This is a sponsored post by Smithers Apex

Key stakeholders dedicated to understanding, encouraging and developing commercial graphene production will be at the forefront of the Graphene World Summit 2016, next week, September 19-20 in San Diego, CA. Through the two-day conference and exhibition, you'll hear not only from academics who have pioneered advancements in graphene, but from the corporations who are leading the way to commercialize graphene.

The Graphene World Summit agenda has attracted a diverse group of attendees-everyone from academics to investors to end-users will be there. The agenda features can’t miss keynote presentations by NanoXplore and the University of California, Riverside. Some of the organizations that will be in San Diego include:

Researchers at Rice University, along with colleagues in Texas, Brazil and India, have found that flakes of graphene oxide, welded together into a solid material, could be advantageous for bone implants. The team used used spark plasma sintering to weld flakes of graphene oxide into porous solids that compare favorably with the mechanical properties and biocompatibility of titanium, a standard bone-replacement material.

A focused ion beam microscope image shows 3-D graphene layers welded together in a block

The researchers stated that their technique will give them the ability to create highly complex shapes out of graphene in minutes using graphite molds, which they believe would be easier to process than specialty metals. They also said that spark plasma sintering is being used in industry to make complex parts, generally with ceramics. "The technique uses a high pulse current that welds the flakes together instantly. You only need high voltage, not high pressure or temperatures". The material they made is nearly 50% porous, with a density half that of graphite and a quarter of titanium metal. But it has enough compressive strength—40 megapascals—to qualify it for bone implants. The strength of the bonds between sheets keeps it from disintegrating in water.

Researchers at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have developed a new graphene oxide-based speaker design said to be specifically targeted for the mobile audio market. The speaker does not require an acoustic box to produce sound.

The researchers used graphene in a relatively simple, two-step process that yielded a thermoacoustic speaker. Thermoacoustics is based on the idea that sound can be produced by the rapid heating and cooling of a material instead of through vibrations.

Today we published a new version of our graphene supercapacitors market report and the graphene investment guide. Graphene-Info provides comprehensive niche graphene market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about these niche markets. These reports are now updated to September 2016.

The Graphene Supercapacitors Market Report:

• Why graphene is exciting for supercapacitors
• What is on the market today
• Bridging the batteries - supercapacitors gap
• Commercial activity and research achievements

The report package provides an introduction to the graphene supercapacitors market - present and future. It includes a list of all graphene companies involved with this market, discusses the latest research activities and includes market forecasts. Read more here!

Researchers at the German FAU have created defect-free graphene directly from graphite. Using the additive benzonitrile, the team designed a technique to produce defect-free graphene directly from a solution that enables selective electronic properties to be set through the various charge carriers and enables the production of efficient and cost-effective graphene.

The solution benzonitrile (grey circle) removes the causes of possible defects and turns red, resulting in defect-free graphene (red circle).

With the addition of a solvent called benzonitrile, defect-free graphene can be obtained without the formation of any additional functional groups. In addition, the benzonitrile molecule formed as a byproduct of the reaction remains red unless it comes into contact with water or oxygen. This color change helps to easily determine the number of charge carriers in the system with the help of absorption measurements. This could give battery and graphene researchers a new way to determine the charge state, as previously could only be done by measuring voltage.

Researchers at the Korean IBS, in collaboration with Sungkyunkwan University, have designed a novel graphene-based stretchable and flexible memory device for wearable electronics.

The team has constructed a memory called two-terminal tunnelling random access memory (TRAM), where two electrodes, referred to as drain and source, resemble the two communicating neurons of the synapse in the brain. While mainstream mobile electronics use the so-called three-terminal flash memory, the advantage of two-terminal memories like TRAM is that two-terminal memories do not need a thick and rigid oxide layer. While Flash memory is more reliable and has better performance, TRAM is more flexible and can be scalable, according to the team.

Oxford Instruments announced the launch of a new collaborative project with the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the National Graphene Institute (NGI), partially funded by the Innovate UK for development of a commercial measurement system for nanotechnology applications.

The proposed turnkey system will be developed at the Oxford's Tubney Woods, UK site. The measurement system will be operating at cryogen free low magnetic fields and will enable primary resistance calibrations with unprecedented accuracies to be used by national metrology laboratories and industrial companies. The system will reduce operational costs, save time and complexity.  

Researchers at Rutgers University have demonstrated a simple microwave-based method for producing high-quality graphene, that can be used in next-gen electronic and energy devices. The proposed microwave treatment is said to produce exceptionally high quality graphene with properties approaching those of pristine graphene.

The team found that heating exfoliated graphene oxide for one second in a 1,000-watt microwave oven (like those used in households across the world) can eliminate virtually all of the oxygen from graphene oxide, yielding graphene in a simple and cost-effective way.