HydroGraph Clean Power has announced that it has closed a non-brokered private placement in which it has raised a sum of CAD$4,218,199.96 (almost USD$3,200,000).

HydroGraph will use the net proceeds of the fundraise to increase commercial scale ‎production, continue to invest in business development teams, and develop and advance ‎application partnerships.‎ In particular, the proceeds will provide capital to complete the build out of the Company’s modular commercial production cell for fractal graphene, its flagship product, that will produce 1 gram per second. Expected to be complete by 4Q 2022, the difference in output will reportedly be orders of magnitude higher than current production. The funding will also initiate the development of the reactive graphene commercial production unit with a 200 kg per day capacity—compared to previously 2-4 kg per day—to be complete in 2023.

Sparc Technologies recently announced a Strategic Partnership Agreement with the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), that will support a long term partnership and commitment between the parties, affording Sparc the first right of refusal to commercialize technologies developed from projects Sparc undertakes with QUT.  The agreement also provides a framework for long term cooperation whereby Sparc and QUT agree to work together to identify and undertake new projects.

Concurrent with signing the Strategic Partnership Agreement, Sparc has commenced a project with QUT to develop a process for the production of hard carbon using low cost sustainably sourced green bio-waste targeting the Sodium ion battery industry. The hard carbon materials will be characterized and tested in a Sodium ion cell format at QUT’s world-class facilities for battery development and testing, including the National Battery Testing Centre and Central Analytical Research Facility (CARF).

Skeleton Technologies has announced that it will supply its 'curved graphene'-enhanced supercapacitors to the metro units that Spanish manufacturer CAF will provide to the city of Granada, Spain.

Headquartered in Donostia - San Sebastian (Spain), the CAF Power & Automation has been working with Skeleton Technologies since last year. Following a successful tender, the Spanish manufacturer has been selected by the Metro de Granada to supply 8 new units for the city's network, which will be added to the 15 previously-delivered units which are
currently in service.

Applied Graphene Materials (AGM) has signed a supply agreement with a global leader in the car detailing industry for an exclusively developed graphene-based solution. The partnership with an undisclosed 'global household name brand' is said to represent a significant milestone for AGM in the car care sector, where it has already announced multiple product launches with smaller participants.

AGM said its new partner is driving innovation in the market and now leads the way in the supply of high-performance auto detailing and finishing products. The addition of AGM's Genable graphene nanoplatelet dispersion technology into car care systems has the potential to significantly improve the barrier performance of waxes, polishes and finishing sprays for vehicles, the company added.

Scientists from Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, in collaboration with teams at Manchester University and UC Irvine,  have shown that an electronic fluid can flow through materials without any electrical resistance, thereby perfectly eliminating a fundamental source of resistance that forms the ultimate limit for ballistic electrons. This result could open the door to improved electronic devices that do not heat up as much as existing technologies.

When electrons flow in electrical wires, they lose part of their energy, which is wasted as heat. This heating is a major problem in everyday electronics. The heating occurs because electrical conductors are never perfect and have a resistance for the flow of electrical currents. Typically, this resistance originates from the scattering of the flowing electrons by imperfections in the host material. But it stands to reason that a perfect conductor, devoid of any imperfections, would have zero resistance. However, even if the conductor is perfectly clean and free from imperfections, the resistance does not vanish. Instead, a new source of resistance emerges, known as the Landauer-Sharvin resistance. In an electrical conductor, electrons flow in quantum channels, much like cars in highway lanes. Similar to highway lanes, each electronic channel has a finite capacity to conduct electrons, limited by the quantum of conductance. For a given conductor, the number of quantum channels is finite and determined by its physical width. Thus, even a perfect electronic device, devoid of any imperfections, will never have infinite conductance. It will always have resistance. In the absence of interactions between electrons, this Landauer-Sharvin resistance is unavoidable, putting a fundamental lower bound on the heating of computer chips, which becomes even more severe as transistors become smaller.

Zentek recently announced it has entered into a Manufacturing and Supply Agreement with Viva Healthcare Packaging (Canada) Ltd. ("VMedCare”) to manufacture and sell surgical masks enhanced with Zentek’s proprietary ZenGUARD™ antimicrobial coating. During the pandemic, VMedCare became one of the leaders in surgical mask manufacturing in Canada with production of between 15 and 20 million units per month. The partnership between Zentek and VMedCare will create a fully “Made in Canada” source of ZenGUARD™-enhanced masks for the Canadian market.

Under the Agreement, Zentek will provide ZenGUARD™-coated spunbond material to VMedCare, who will be responsible for manufacturing and packaging the ZenGUARD™ surgical masks. Zentek and VMedCare’s combined sales teams will work together to secure sales of the ZenGUARD™-enhanced surgical masks.

Ni-Co layered double hydroxides (LDH) are seen as promising materials for pseudocapacitor electrodes. Researchers from Chonnam National University and Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) recently conducted a study that focused on the use of graphene oxide (GO) and single-walled carbon nanohorns (SWCNHs) hybrid as an efficient platform for LDH coating materials for supercapacitor electrodes.

The team explained that the novel Ni-Co LDH and GO/SWCNHs composite-based supercapacitor electrode material could be a potential choice for pseudocapacitor applications thanks to its superior electrochemical properties and ease of production, which is ideal for various commercial and industrial applications.

Advanced Material Development (AMD) has announced further funding of its ChamEM signature management collaboration with the US Army from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).

The OSD funding comes from the Foreign Comparative Test (FCT) funding with a view to developing a high TRL solution.

Researchers from the National Institute for Cryogenics and Isotopic Technologies ICSI-Rm in Romania have applied microwave processes to iodine doping and reduction of graphene oxide, to produce functionalized fuel cell organic reduction reaction electrocatalysts. The team chose to utilize microwave-assisted processes because of their many benefits, like reduced energy, time, and cost demands.

The process developed by the team relies on a faster, simpler, more economical, and efficient protocol under atmospheric pressure conditions. Under mild conditions, the microwave-assisted process highlighted in the research synthesizes a canvas-like iodine/reduced graphene oxide structure from graphene oxide. Thus, a low-cost, efficient alternative to platinum-based catalysts has been developed.

Haydale has started to supply South Korean plastics developer NeoEnpla with functionalized graphene nano-platelets (GNPs) for use in food packaging. Functionalized using Haydale's patented HDPlas® technology, the GNP-enhanced thermoplastic has been used to manufacture an initial sample range of food storage zipper bags and biodegradable plastic bags.

LLDPE and LDPE (low density polyethylene) are widely used in food packaging and are ideal for food storage due to their high resistance to moisture, tearing and chemicals. The graphene-enhanced zipper bags have reportedly shown an increase in tensile strength of 31% compared to non-graphene LLDPE (linear low-density polyethylene) zipper bags. In addition, the increased mechanical strength of the graphene zipper bags allows light weighting of the plastic, reducing the film thickness from 90µm to 60µm per bag.