November 2019

The NanoEDGE BMBF-Project, coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT, aims at the development of a graphene-based ink for inkjet printing and a scalable printing process as well as a resource-efficient process chain for the production of electrodes for direct skin contact.

Printed test electrodes in the NanoEDGE project

The development of a graphene-based ink is based on a commercial graphene ink. Ink modification was necessary to make it printable. Ethanol is added to avoid bubbles and to decrease the surface tension of the ink. Carbon nanoparticles are added to improve abrasion resistance of printed structures. A surfactant is added to improve printability and to increase the conductivity and surface smoothness of printed structures.

Directa Plus has announced the completion of a planned acquisition of a 51% stake in Setcar, which would be renamed Directa Environmental Solutions.

"Setcar has been a business partner for a number of years and we are pleased that it is now part of the Directa Plus group" said founder and chief executive Giulio Cesareo.

Advanced materials company Versarien recently shared that it has signed a commercial partnership agreement with textile-sector company MAS Innovation. The agreement followed a letter of intent between the parties, which set out their intent to enter into a formal commercial partnership.

The agreement specifies the terms under which the parties would secure commercial orders for garments developed using Versarien's proprietary graphene ink materials. It allowed both parties to finalize additional contractual terms with third party brands.

Archer Materials (formerly Archer Exploration) has reported progressing its graphene-based biosensor technology development by building a first-phase prototype device to test the printing and performance of graphene inks.

The prototype biosensor technology built at the University of Adelaide ARC Graphene Hub

Graphene ink formulations produced from the inventory of Carbon Allotropes, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Archer, have reportedly been successfully printed and tested in a prototype device for biosensing.

Advanced materials group Haydale Graphene recently raised £450,000 (around $580,000 USD) following the issue of new shares.

Haydale said the funds will be used for general working capital purposes. Haydale also noted that it had approximately £2.47m of cash as of 31 October.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Directa Plus and Skanska are getting ready a trial of re-surfacing a section of a UK road in Curbridge, Oxfordshire with materials containing G+ graphene substance. Now, Skanska has mentioned that it is also in talks to trial the graphene-enhanced asphalt on the UK's M25.

The Curbridge works, which were delivered by subcontractor Aggregate Industries, involved removal and reinstatement of the existing carriageway to a depth of 150mm over a 750m-long section. One lane was replaced using conventional materials, while the opposite ‘trial’ lane was resurfaced using the asphalt enhanced by the innovative asphalt modifier.

In 2018, researchers at MIT demonstrated superconductivity in magic-angle bilayer graphene. Now, Dmitri Efetov of the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona, Spain, and his colleagues have replicated MIT's results and discovered even more states in magic-angle graphene. By preparing a high-quality device, Efetov’s team could measure the electronic phases more accurately and resolve previously hidden electronic states.

To realize the magic angle, the researchers use an established technique: They take one sheet of graphene and tear it in two. They then rotate one of the pieces just past the magic angle, by about 1.2°, and stack it on top of the other. In most electrical devices, the final step is annealing to clean the sample and get rid of any air bubbles between the layers. But in magic-angle graphene, with the layers misaligned by such a small angle, heating the sample snaps the graphene layers back into alignment. Instead of annealing, Efetov and his colleagues rolled the top layer down gradually, starting from one edge, rather than dropping the second layer directly down onto the first. That method squeezes out any air bubbles as they form. The result is a relative angle that varies by only 0.02° over a 10 µm device, a record for magic-angle graphene. The fabrication overall is tricky; it was reported that in three months of trying, just 2 of the 30 devices worked.

A team of researchers at IIT-Gandhinagar in India has discovered an unexpected phenomenon that could have significant implications on the existing protocols followed to synthesize graphene and other two dimensional (2D) nanomaterials.

A popular method to synthesize graphene is liquid-phase exfoliation, in which the graphite powder is mixed in a suitable liquid medium and exposed to bursts of high-intensity sound energy (ultrasonication). This ultrasonic energy delaminates the layered parent crystals into daughter nanosheets that suspend and swim in the organic solvents to form a stable dispersion of 2D nanomaterials.

UK-based AMD, which was accepted for funding via the UK Defense and Security Accelerator (DASA) in the field of signature management, recently received its second DASA funding in the field of Nanobarcoding, Authenticating Critical Components.

CEO John Lee comments: This year has seen a rapid evolution in AMD’s involvement in the area of protecting both military and civilian personnel. Following on from our work in signature management we are now able, with the support of DASA funding, to further our efforts in our key vertical of anti-counterfeiting technologies. Both the UK & US defense agencies have been extremely supportive of our work and we look forward to continuing developing these rewarding relationships... Our work with the Materials Physics teams at Sussex and now Surrey continues to drive some very exciting areas of innovation with specific commercial applications and it looks like 2020 will see some major developments for us in a multitude of areas.

Researchers from Iowa State University’s (ISU) Department of Mechanical Engineering, led by Dr. Jonathan Claussen, have developed a graphene-enhanced sensor that can detect organophosphates at levels 40 times smaller than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommendations. Organophosphates are certain classes of insecticides used on crops throughout the world to kill insects.

Claussen and his team have developed Salt Impregnated Inkjet Maskless Lithography (SIIML), which uses an inkjet printer to create inexpensive graphene circuits with high electrical conductivity. They add salts to the ink, which is later washed away to leave microsized divots or craters in the surface. This textured printed graphene surface is able to bind with pesticide-sensing enzymes to increase sensitivity during pesticide biosensing.