The European Defence Agency (EDA) hosted the kick-off meeting for a new study to be carried out over the next 12 months on possible future applications of graphene in the military domain and its expected impact on the European defence industry. The study findings are expected to be published in December 2018/January 2019.
To explore the possible military applications in the land, air and maritime domains, the EDA launched the graphene study which, following a Europe-wide call for tenders, was assigned to Fundacion Tecnalia Research and Innovation (Spain) who will collaborate with two partners, the Technical University of Cartagena (Spain) and Cambridge Nanomaterial Technology (United Kingdom). All consortium members have proven experience in graphene research and also in the defence sector.
- to analyse and evaluate the extent to which graphene is already used in dual-use or military areas and what the prospects of future defence applications are;
- to develop an ambitious-yet-realistic roadmap for the development of graphene in the defence domains, backed and supported by the EDA’s ‘Materials’ CapTech;
- to demonstrate graphene’s defence-related potential through a series of practical experiments the results of which will be published in a scientific journal