November 2018

IDTechEx says that while graphene is still recovering from its hype curve, commercialization is making steady progress, with increased industry experience, availability - and volume sales.

IDTecEx says that the market "inflection point" is expected to happen in 2021 - by then the industry will have an experience of over 15 years and sales volume will reach almost $100 million.

Haydale has announced that through its Taiwanese operation, Haydale Technologies Taiwan, it has started to supply commercial quantities of its functionalized graphene ink to a major print house in Taiwan. The graphene ink is used to print test strips in the self-diagnostic biomedical sensor device market for diabetes monitoring. Haydale believes its graphene ink is the first of its kind being used in volume in this market.

Following over a year of market testing, evaluation and gaining regulatory approvals, including extensive production quantity in-line testing, HTW has now started to deliver its graphene screen printed inks as part of a recent 100kg order secured from a leading Taiwanese printer. Haydale's graphene ink is reportedly proving to be a high quality, more stable, and consistent product, replacing the established graphite and carbon inks used extensively in producing the test strips for this significant global market.

Researches from the University of California, Riverside and University of California, Los Angeles have demonstrated a novel above-IC graphene NEMS switches for electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection applications.

This graphene ESD switch is a two-terminal device with a gap between the conducting substrate at the bottom and a suspended graphene membrane on top serving as the discharging path. This new concept provides a potentially revolutionary mechanism for the on-chip ESD protections.

Australia-based advanced materials technology company, Talga Resources, has reported outstanding conductivity results from its Talphene-enhanced epoxy composite trials undertaken at TWI in the UK. Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) panels were constructed using a dispersion of Talga graphene (Talphene) in the epoxy-based resin of the composite and subjected to a range of conductivity tests pertinent to aircraft applications.

CFRP test panels after lightning strike tests (Talphene panel on right in both photos). Image by Talga

Results reported by Talga showed the Talphene panel provided similar lightning strike protection as copper mesh panels currently used in composite aircraft but saved 75% of the weight of the copper. Further results demonstrating Talphene’s significant conductivity included up to 500% increase in dielectric constant, 100% increase in resin thermal conductivity as well as spot temperatures well over 100 degrees celsius in anti-icing trials.

First Graphene has reported a large purchase order for 2,000 kg (2 tonnes) of PureGRAPH range products from newGen for delivery during 2019. FGR states that this order represents a step change in the business as it starts to scale up for larger size orders. In addition, FGR says that the premium price to be received pursuant to the order "debunks the myth that graphene is expensive".

As previously reported, FGR is working closely with newGen Group to provide performance enhancement to their existing products. newGen Group has recently introduced a branded Amour-GRAPH product range of wear liners for bucket wheel, pipe spools and conveyor applications.

The Graphene-Info team takes pleasure in recommending our new book - The Perovskite Handbook. While not focused on graphene, we believe that any person interested in advanced materials and emerging technologies would find that perovskite materials are an area of focus that should not be ignored.

This book gives a comprehensive introduction to perovskite materials, applications and industry. Perovskites offer a myriad of exciting properties and are considered the future of solar cells, displays, sensors, lasers and more. The promising perovskite industry is currently at a tipping point and on the verge of mass adoption and commercialization.

The graphene industry should especially pay attention to perovskites as much work is done on combining these two material technologies to create better solar cells, displays and more.

In February 2018, Haydale, the University of Swansea and Wheelsure entered a collaboration to develop intelligent systems for transport and industrial applications using Haydale's graphene ink sensor technology, in order to extend Wheelsure's product range. Now, Haydale has confirmed that The University of Manchester's Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre ("GEIC") is set to join this collaboration.

The project aims to develop an intelligent new product pairing Haydale's functionalized graphene sensor technology with Wheelsure's failsafe locking solution. The sensor will be developed by applications engineers at the GEIC using Haydale's functionalised graphene. The project is expected to be showcased at the official opening of the GEIC in December 2018.

Researchers from Southeast University and Suzhou University of Science and Technology in China have combined the properties of graphene and paraffin to create a novel material that exhibits controllable, reversible transition between a slippery and a rough surface. They fabricated a graphene-based film with a porous surface filled with paraffin that allows droplets of water and other fluids to stick or slide on demand, while following complicated pathways.

The research team used near-infrared (NIR) laser irradiation to control the surface behavior of the film and form patterned flow pathways on it. Their work can simplify the manipulation of liquids inside microplates that are extensively used for bioassays in biomedical and clinical laboratories; it may also prove to be a valuable tool for blood grouping diagnosis.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have conducted simulations suggesting that graphene can be modified with special pores to act as a tunable filter or strainer for ions in a liquid.

The concept could have applications like nanoscale mechanical sensors, drug delivery, water purification and sieves or pumps for ion mixtures similar to biological ion channels, which are critical to the function of living cells.

The Materials+ Technology research group at the UPV/EHU’s Faculty of Engineering has, in collaboration with the University of Strasbourg, developed unique hydrogels with potential biomedical applications. Starch was used as the raw material and a 3D network structure was produced. When graphene and salvia extracts were added, the hydrogel was provided with electrical properties as well as the necessary antibacterial ones.

Hydrogels are physical and chemical polymer networks capable of retaining large quantities of liquid in aqueous conditions without losing their dimensional stability. They are used in a various applications and when various components are added to them, they acquire specific properties. This was the path followed by the research team, that selected a rather surprising biopolymer for its hydrogel: starch. One of our lines of research focuses on starch and we regard it as having biological, and physical and chemical properties suitable for producing hydrogels, said Kizkitza Gonzalez-Munduate, a member of the group.