Graphene is a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb-like pattern. Graphene is considered to be the world's thinnest, strongest and most conductive material - of both electricity and heat. All of these properties are exciting researchers and businesses around the world - as graphene has the potential to revolutionize entire industries - in the fields of electricity, conductivity, energy generation, batteries, sensors and more.
Mechanical strength
Graphene is the world's strongest material, and can be used to enhance the strength of other materials. Dozens of researchers have demonstrated that adding even a trace amount of graphene to plastics, metals or other materials can make these materials much stronger - or lighter (as you can use a smaller amount of material to achieve the same strength).
Such graphene-enhanced composite materials can find uses in aerospace, building materials, mobile devices, and many other applications.
Thermal applications
Graphene is the most heat conductive found to date. As graphene is also strong and light, it means that it is a great material for making heat-spreading solutions, such as heat sinks or heat dissipation films. This could be useful in both microelectronics (for example to make LED lighting more efficient and longer lasting) and also in larger applications - for example thermal foils for mobile devices. Huawei's latest smartphones, for example, have adopted graphene-based thermal films.
Energy storage
Since graphene is the world's thinnest material, it also extremely high surface-area to volume ratio. This makes graphene a very promising material for use in batteries and supercapacitors. Graphene may enable batteries and supercapacitors (and even fuel-cells) that can store more energy - and charge faster, too.
The advantages of graphene batteries
Coatings ,sensors, electronics and more
Graphene has a lot of promise for additional applications: anti-corrosion coatings and paints, efficient and precise sensors, faster and efficient electronics, flexible displays, efficient solar panels, faster DNA sequencing, drug delivery, and more.
Graphene is such a great and basic building block that it seems that any industry can benefit from this new material. Time will tell where graphene will indeed make an impact - or whether other new materials will be more suitable.
The latest Graphene Application news:
GrapheneDx, General Graphene Corp and Sapphiros announce strategic partnership to industrialize graphene-based biosensors
GrapheneDX, General Graphene Corporation and Sapphiros have announce a strategic partnership to industrialize graphene-based biosensors for medical devices used to diagnose a variety of diseases at the point-of-care and in consumer settings.
GrapheneDx is an in vitro diagnostics company focused on improving diagnostic capability at the point-of-care and in consumer settings. The company is an expert in functionalizing graphene to create graphene field effect transistors (GFETs), which are biosensors that can be used to detect disease in biological samples. GrapheneDx's medical devices are designed to provide lab-quality accuracy, deliver results in less than 5 minutes and be simple enough to be performed both at the point of care and by patients without the supervision of a medical professional. The company's GFET platform is versatile, demonstrating performance across a variety of disease states (sexually transmitted infections, respiratory disease, cardiac disease, concussion and others) and sample types (stool, urine, swabs, blood, etc.), with little or no sample preparation. Additionally, the platform is capable of multiplexing numerous analytes concurrently with a single patient sample. GrapheneDx's first tests will be for the diagnosis of sexually transmitted infections, including Chlamydia and Gonorrhea, using a noninvasive, easy to collect urine sample.
Researchers develop graphene-based wearable textile that can capture energy from body movement to power devices
Researchers from Sichuan University, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a graphene-based wearable textile that can convert body movement into useable electricity and even store that energy. The fabric can potentially be used in a wide range of applications, from medical monitoring to assisting athletes and their coaches in tracking their performance, as well as smart displays on clothing.
The accuracy of current wearable electronic devices and various available health monitors remains limited due to the handful of locations on or near the body on which they can be placed, and restricted to a small selection of applications. In the future, if advanced fabrics can be developed, wearable electronic devices integrated into shirts, pants, underwear and hats will be able to track indicators of frailty to assess risk of age-related disease, monitor cortisol levels to track stress levels, or even detect pathogens as part of a global pandemic monitoring network. To take wearable electronics to this next level, monitors will have to be integrated into textiles in a way that is lightweight, unobtrusive and less cumbersome.
Asus launched ROG Swift PG49WCD monitor with graphene heat management technology
Asus has unveiled the Asus ROG Swift OLED PG49WCD, a gaming monitor that uses graphene for thermal management.
Asus did not yet reveal the price or shipping date of the PG49WCD monitor.
Researchers employ novel nanoprocessing method to achieve damage-free multi-point hole drilling in a graphene film
Earlier this year, Tohoku University researchers created a technique that could micro/nanofabricate silicon nitride thin devices with thicknesses ranging from 5 to 50 nanometers. The method employed a femtosecond laser, which emitted extremely short, rapid pulses of light. It turned out to be capable of quickly and conveniently processing thin materials without a vacuum environment.
By applying this method to an ultra-thin atomic layer of graphene, the same group has now succeeded in performing a multi-point hole drilling without damaging the graphene film.
CA2DM@NUS and CBMM develop advanced niobium-graphene batteries with 30-year lifecycles
The Centre for Advanced 2D Materials (CA2DM) at the National University of Singapore (NUS), focused on the research of graphene and other 2-dimensional (2D) materials, and CBMM, a leader in niobium products and technology, have developed new niobium-graphene batteries.
The batteries are currently being tested at the new CBMM-CA2DM Advanced Battery Laboratory which was recently launched by NUS and CBMM (established with a joint investment of USD$3.8 million) over three years, supported by the National Research Foundation, Singapore.
Graphene Square Electronics launches crowdfunding campaign for its Kitchen Styler
Graphene Square Electronics has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to raise funds for what the Company calls "the first graphene powered appliance - Kitchen Styler".
According to Graphene Square Electronics, it is the "first and only appliance to use graphene as its sole source of heat". It is said to use CVD graphene in its design.
GMG announces graphene aluminium-ion battery Joint Development Agreement with Rio Tinto
Graphene Manufacturing Group (GMG) has announced the signing of a binding Joint Development Agreement ("JDA") with Rio Tinto, with the goal of accelerating the development and application of GMG's Graphene Aluminium-Ion batteries in the mining and minerals industry. Rio Tinto will contribute technical and operational performance criteria and A$6 million (over USD$3,900,000), in exchange for preferential access rights.
The JDA seeks to support the accelerated development of GMG's Graphene Aluminium-Ion Batteries for use in heavy mobile equipment and grid energy storage applications in the mining and mineral industry. The JDA builds on the existing collaboration for Rio Tinto to explore the use of GMG's Energy Saving and Energy Storage solutions (announced May 2022). This JDA is effective immediately and is expected to last 2 years with payments spread over the term of the agreement. The JDA aims to co-develop GMG's Graphene Aluminium-Ion battery pouch cell into an initial battery pack/module proof of concept.
Versarien announces test results that show Cementene-enhanced concrete helps reduce CO2 emissions
Versarien has shared that trials of a precast concrete containing its Cementene water-based graphene mixture were shown to maintain its strength with 20% of the cement removed.
The initial results, carried out in tests at the accredited laboratory of Ireland-based Banagher Precast Concrete, “demonstrate the significant potential to reduce CO2 emissions without impacting the performance of the concrete”, the AIM-listed company said. This is because producing 1kg of ordinary Portland cement emits around 0.8-0.9kg of CO2 and roughly 500kg of cement is used per cubic metre of Banagher's precast concrete. Producing 1kg of Cementene is estimated to generate a higher level of CO2 emissions, at 1.44 kg, but Versarien said because only around 5kg of Cementene is used per cubic metre of concrete and allows the removal of 20% of cement in the precast concrete mix, this would equate to a net saving of almost 73kg of CO2 emissions per cubic metre of concrete poured.
Graphene-Info publishes a new edition of its Graphene for Displays and Lighting Market Report
Today we published a new edition of our Graphene for Displays and Lighting Market Report, with all the latest information. Graphene has high potential to improve LCD, OLED and MicroLED displays and can be used to enhance displays backplanes, electrodes, emitters and more. In addition graphene can increase efficiency in lighting devices and improve designs.
Reading this report, you'll learn all about:
- Graphene applications in LED and OLED lighting
- Graphene's adoption as a backplane for AMOLEDs
- Transparent graphene electrodes
- Graphene-based encapsulation development
The report package also provides:
- Graphene companies involved with display and lighting
- An introduction to graphene
- An introduction to lighting and displays
- Details about graphene for QDs, lasers and thermal foils
This market report provides a great introduction to graphene solutions for the display and lighting markets, and covers everything you need to know about graphene technologies in these niches. This is a great guide for anyone involved with the displays and lighting.
Researchers develop GO-based injectable bioelectrodes with tunable degradability
Researchers from Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) and Chonnam National University Medical School have developed graphene-based conductive hydrogel electrodes that offer convenience of use, controllable degradation, and excellent signal transmission.
Implantable bioelectrodes are electronic devices that can monitor or stimulate biological activity by transmitting signals to and from living biological systems. Such devices can be fabricated using various materials and techniques. But, because of their intimate contact and interactions with living tissues, selection of the right material for performance and biocompatibility is crucial. Conductible hydrogels are attracting great attention as bioelectrode materials owing to their flexibility, compatibility, and excellent interaction ability. However, the absence of injectability and degradability in conventional conductive hydrogels limits their convenience of use and performance in biological systems. The researchers' new graphene-based conductive hydrogels possess injectability and tunable degradability, furthering the design and development of advanced bioelectrodes.