May 2018

The following is a sponsored message by The Graphene Flagship

Each year the Graphene Flagship organizes a school to educate students and early career researchers interested in graphene and its applications.

"The goal of the school is to bring together students working on related areas of research with experienced scientists from academia and industry," says Graphene Flagship Director Jari Kinaret.

​Researchers from the Graphene Flagship have developed a new technique to map the conductivity of graphene on the large scale. This technique uses the non-destructive, fast and highly accurate terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and has exciting ramifications for the graphene production environment.

Large scale metrology is going to be an integral part of industrialization, said Professor Peter Bøggild, Group Leader at DTU Nanotech and the paper’s lead author, We will never get real quality without quality control.

The Datong Graphene and Green Technology Industrial Park is reportedly nearing completion. With investment of 10 billion yuan ($1.57 billion USD), it includes a graphene production base, a research and development center, an academic communication and reception center and related companies.

The park, built by Datong Moxi Technology, covers an area of 200 hectares and is located in Datong Economic Development Zone. The industrial park is eventually expected to provide jobs for around 7,000 people.

Researchers at the Austraila-based UNSW have developed a graphene-based material that could revolutionize moisture control in applications as diverse as electronics, packaging and air conditioning and which could also be used to keep footwear fresh.

The new dessicant, made from graphene oxide, is reported to significantly outperform current drying agents, and is twice as absorbent as the industry standard, silica gel. This is a stable new material that shows significant gains in adsorption capacity over conventional desiccants, says the team.

Scientists at the Academy of Sciences of China have created a new material that can purify contaminated water by means of light and a material made of networks of graphene and titanium dioxide.

The Chinese team stated that the graphene catches the dirt and the titanium acts as the photocatalyst and accelerates the process of photochemical degradation of toxic organic substances. The new material reduces the concentration of heavy metals, and can be effectively used for the treatment of industrial effluents. The new model was successfully tested in Shanghai and the provinces Jiangsu and Anhui.

Versarien has announced that it has signed a collaboration with an undisclosed FTSE listed European manufacturer and supplier of co‑manufactured and private label consumer products for the household and personal care markets.

The collaboration will see both parties working on a number of projects involving the incorporation of Versarien's proprietary Nanene few layer graphene nano-platelets into polymer structures. In particular, the collaboration will aim to provide alternative solutions for packaging and the enhancement of existing products utilizing graphene-enhanced polymers.

In April 2017, The Ministry of Transport, national operator KTMB in Malaysia and China's CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive signed a €180 million contract for the supply of electric trains with graphene-based supercapacitors. Now, reports indicate that the first of 13 Class 61 inter-regional diesel multiple-units for services along Malaysia’s east coast corridor have been largely completed at CRRC Zhuzhou’s plant in China.

The first trainset is expected to be handed over to national operator KTMB by early July. After a period of testing, it is due to enter commercial service in October. The four-car, 1 000 mm gauge DMUs have a design speed of 140 km/h and are expected to operate at up to 120 km/h. They are reportedly being equipped with CRRC’s own design of graphene-based supercapacitor for storing braking energy and two MAN powerpacks.

MGX Minerals' energy storage subsidiary ZincNyx Energy Solutions will be looking at the use of graphene-based materials to incorporate in its battery technology. ZincNyx and its research partners have secured a grant of CAD$580,000 (around $446,000 USD) from Canada's Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) over the next three years to develop 'nanostructured material' for the next generation of Zinc-air energy storage.

ZincNyx has developed a modular storage system using zinc and air to store energy, which has none of the traditional high cost battery commodities such as lithium, vanadium or cobalt. ''Graphene is getting a lot of attention for many applications, but is particularly promising for electrochemical reactions since it can perform on par with traditionally used platinum'' said project lead Professor Jeff Gostick of the University of Waterloo, Calgary, Canada.

Researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany and the University of Stuttgart, Germany have developed a novel silver nanoparticle-graphene hybrid photodetector device with an increased ability to detect Ultraviolet light.

To enhance graphene's interaction with light, researchers have proposed several strategies. One of these strategies has been to sensitize the graphene with plasmonic nanostructures, to form a graphene-plasmonic hybrid system. Plasmonic nanoparticles are particles which show an increased interaction with light of wavelength larger than the particle itself. These particles are said to interact with light waves through an oscillation of their internal electric fields, as the light hits the particle. Previous studies have demonstrated enhanced visible and infrared light detection efficiency in graphene-plasmonics hybrid materials. However, these devices haven’t been efficient at detecting ultraviolet (UV) light.

Signet International Holdings has announced a Letter of Intent for the acquisition of HyCarb, a Florida-based company operating in association with the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida to develop graphene-enhanced batteries.

HyCarb has reported that it is currently completing the prototype of its first phase, the "HyCarb Coin Cell Battery". The battery is expected to be ready for manufacturing within the next year. "This new generation Graphene battery has proven to be amazing," says Signet's president Thomas Donaldson. "Within the next twelve months, we will be on the market delivering a coin cell battery far superior than the Lithium Ion battery in use today."