October 2022

Zentek recently announced the start of a 4-year, CAD$1,600,000 (around USD$1,172,000) research project in collaboration with Professors Mohini Sain and Ning Yan from the University of Toronto (“U of T”) and Ford Powertrain Engineering Research and Development Centre (“PERDC”).

Funding for the project includes CAD$1.2 million (around USD$879,000) from the Mitacs Accelerate program. Prof. Sain is the Endowed Ford Motor Canada Chair in Sustainable Materials where he is active in the field of light energy storage including cell chemistry and renewable fuel battery development at PERDC, and Prof. Yan is the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Bioproducts. Collaborating with the PERDC and testing at this facility is essential to demonstrate battery advances at a scale suitable for the automotive industry. 

Directa Plus has signed an agreement with CIA Miguel Caballero SAS, a Columbia-based manufacturer of ballistic protection clothing. This is Directa Plus' first supply contract in Latin America, reportedly worth €1 million over four years.  

As part of the new contract, Directa will supply 77,500 linear meters of PTC printed material over four years following a four-month trial period. Directa will provide CIA Miguel’s subsidiary, MC Amor, with PTC printed linings for ballistic vests. This supposedly refers to the G+ Planar Thermal Circuit (PTC), a technology for a functional Graphene Plus print that can be applied to various types of fabrics.

G6 Materials Corporation announced its FY2022 results for the year that ended on May 31, 2022. Revenues were $1.35 million, down from $1.94 million last year, primarily due to restructuring a change in sales mix by shifting the Company’s focus to the launch of its own brand of air purifiers.

The company's net loss for the year was $4.9 million, up from $0.94 million last year, primarily due to the $2,776,756 write-down of the value of its investment in GX Technologies due to the asset being deemed to be not ready for use and due to lower sales of air purification products. G6 says, however, that it is optimistic regarding the improvement in gross profit, and it expects revenues to increase in the near future as more of its air purification units became available for purchase by consumers through third-party websites. In fact, you can find the Breath+ Pro at Amazon.com, for $349.

Australia-based Archer Materials has developed a graphene-based field effect transistor (gFET) that can operate in wet environments. The gFET device is a sensing component which will be used in medical applications, like for digitizing biologically-relevant signals such as those from target analytes of viruses or bacteria. The biochip innovation will be integrated with advanced microfluidic systems to allow the manufacturing of mini lab-on-a-chip device platforms designed for medical diagnostics.

The company explained that the integration of gFETs with on-chip microfluidics potentially enables multiplexing, such as the ability to parallelize the detection of multiple biologically relevant targets in droplet-size liquid samples on a chip. The innovation can prevent liquids from shorting the integrated circuit, while simultaneously obtaining electronic signals using the liquid as part of the device. 

An international team of researchers, including ones from Aalto University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Zhejiang University, Sichuan University,  Oregon State University, Yonsei University and the University of Cambridge, have designed a miniaturized spectrometer made of a ‘sandwich’ of different ingredients, including graphene, molybdenum disulfide, and tungsten diselenide. 

The spectrometer reportedly breaks all current resolution records, and does so in a much smaller package, thanks to computational programs and artificial intelligence. The new miniaturized devices could be used in a broad range of sectors, from checking the quality of food to analyzing starlight or detecting faint clues of life in outer space.

Directa Plus has announced that its G+ graphene will be used in the asphalt for a 250 kilometer (km) motorway section in Italy, along with selected recycled hard plastics such as toys, fruit crates and litter bins, to make a product called Gipave. The contract to use the Gipave asphalt ‘supermodifier’ in the road surfacing of the A4 Torino-Milano motorway section was won by Directa's Italian partner Iterchimica with motorway management and infrastructure specialist ASTM Group.  

Gipave uses Directa's graphene to improve resistance and life span for road surfaces.

Levidian has secured financial backing from US energy technology giant Baker Hughes (Nasdaq: BKR) a £12 million investment.

The funding will enable the further scale up of Levidian’s business, including both LOOP, Levidian’s decarbonization device, and graphene production capacities at its Cambridge headquarters – allowing Levidian to capitalize on the significant interest in its ground-breaking work.

Here are some recent and popular graphene industry updates that you may find of interest:

• Skeleton Technologies launches its graphene SuperBattery and unveils Shell as partner
• Researchers use graphene electrodes to split water molecules
• New graphene-enhanced asphalt installation in the UK
• William Blythe expands its graphene oxide capacity to 50 tonnes as demand increases
• Black Swan Graphene is now a public company, with a $52 million market cap
• LG launches graphene-enhanced earbuds
• Viritech launches graphene-enhanced hypercar
• PolyJoule unveils graphene-enhanced polymer batteries
• Haydale to lead project for high barrier monolayer films for food packaging
• NeoGraf Solutions inaugurates its 750-ton graphene production facility
• WearGraphene's graphene-enhanced jacket - a hands-on review
• Are graphene batteries finally getting closer to commercialization?
• Graphene oxide gives a boost to new intranasal flu vaccine

Nanotech Energy Europe, a fully owned subsidiary of Nanotech Energy, has announced it has signed a purchase agreement to supply 1+ GWh size BESS (battery energy storage systems), based on graphene technology, through 2028 to Smile Energy in Athens, Greece.

Nanotech stated that the partnership with Smile Energy will allow the immediate expansion of Nanotech's energy storage business to a region which has committed to developing the world's preeminent solar infrastructure. Together, Nanotech and Smile will play a role in supporting Greece and the surrounding region to take the next steps to ensure stability of infrastructure and continuity of energy supply.

Researchers from Tsinghua University recently developed a self-powered sensor that can monitor and detect multiple environmental stimuli simultaneously and demonstrated how it can “translate” sign language into audio.

The sensor was made from graphene oxide and powered internally by a moist electric generator called MEG, which contains a membrane that spontaneously absorbs water from the air. When water adheres to the surface, this results in a higher concentration of hydrogen ions at the top of the membrane and a potential difference between its two electrodes.