When speaking of graphene in terms of commercialization, the general impression is that "a killer application has not yet been found". While this is not a false concept, it does not do justice with the now-budding graphene world. It can easily be stated that many graphene applications are being developed. This has been true for years, but various commercial products are starting to pop up, hopefully heralding the beginning of a more steady stream of commercialization.

Among these applications, one can point to cooling technology like Cryorig's CPU cooling system or Huawei's Mate 30 X smartphone, which sports a graphene film cooling technology. Various footwear and sports equipment products have also been launched, along with more technical products like oil additives and coatings. The list goes on and on, and there are even graphene-enhanced sanitary napkins on the market!

Norway-based Graphene Oxide developer Abalonyx reports that its graphene oxide sales have increased by about 80 % in 2018, and this follows a 70% increase in 2017 compared to 2016. The company expects to see further strong sales growth in 2019.

Abalonyx says that over 90% of its sales derive from returning industrial partners. The company also revealed two of these customers: ORA Graphene Audio with its GO membranes and Provexa AB which developed an anti-corrosion protection coating that is now being used on Scania trucks.

MediaDevil, a UK-based maker of various phone, laptop and tablet accessories, is selling the Artisanphonics CB-01 Earphones - Noise-isolating Premium Wood Earphones with Nanene Graphene-Enhanced Audio.

These earphones, enhanced with Versarien's Nanene material, reportedly sport an earphone diaphragm that is thinner and more flexible than traditional materials can allow. MediaDevil says that independent testing conducted by a leading British premium audio company found that, remarkably, Nanene enhances both the high-end (treble) and the low-end (bass) of the audio frequency wave.

2018 will soon be over - and it was a good year for the graphene industry. Graphene-based products are entering the market, and new advances in many applications have been reported. It seems that graphene is finally starting to fulfill its promise.

Here are the top 10 stories posted on Graphene-Info in 2018, ranked by popularity (i.e. how many people read the story):

1. On Nanotech Engineering's 92% efficiency graphene-CNTs solar panel claim (Jan 15)
2. New graphene-based 'atomristors' could pave the way towards more powerful computing (Jan 19)
3. Haydale and WCPC awarded contract to develop advanced wearable technology for athletes training for the 2020 Olympic Games (Sep 20)
4. Graphene-enhanced sodium-ion batteries show promise as cheap, effective lithium alternative (Feb 11)
5. Australian CSIRO develops promising graphene-based water filtration membrane (Feb 15)
6. Ghostek launches the world's first headphones with graphene drivers (Jan 1)
7. Callaway launches new graphene-enhanced golf balls (Jan 23)
8. First Graphene provides updates on the BEST Battery project (Feb 21)
9. Graphene-based heating devices hit the market (Feb 19)
10. University of Arkansas aims to commercialize its revolutionary graphene-based VEH technology (Jan 23)

This is a guest post by Guillaume Chansin

Graphene is probably the most hyped material of the past decade, but so far commercial applications have been limited. Graphene is mostly used as an additive inside composites and plastics to enhance their thermal or structural properties. In the most recent high profile case, Huawei announced the integration of a passive graphene cooling film to improve heat management inside one of their smartphones. While this is a useful use of graphene, it is a far cry from the disruptive electronics that were promised when the material was first isolated.

It is worth considering that both investments and patent filings in graphene peaked in 2015. Nearly four years later, we can expect to see some of these to start paying off with some product launches.

Graphenea, in collaboration with industrial and academic partners (Infineon Technologies, WITec, RWTH Aachen University and Simune Atomistics), announced the successful completion of project NanoGraM that focused on nano/microelectromechanical (NEMS/MEMS) devices based on graphene. The project focused on three specific device concepts for potential future products: graphene microphones, graphene-membrane pressure sensors and graphene-membrane Hall sensors.

The target markets for these devices include portable electronics (smartphones, laptops), automotive, industrial, and smart homes, among others.

Graphene has many potential applications in the audio industry, and many companies have recently released graphene-enhanced audio devices (including headphones, earphones and interconnects). Ari Pinkas, the co-founder of Ora Graphene Audio, was kind enough to answer a few questions we had for him regarding the audio industry, graphene adoption, and the company's own graphene oxide based driver technology.

Q: Hello Ari, thank you for the interview. How long has Ora been involved in graphene research?

While Ora’s graphene technology is based on 2013 research done at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, our scientists have been working with the ‘wonder material’ for over a decade. Before founding the company, Ora’s technical team worked with General Motors on applying graphene oxide to battery anodes for electric vehicles at McGill. Earlier in his career, Ora’s VP Technology, Sergii Tutashkonko, was in Nagoya, Japan, hard at work applying CVD graphene to solar cells.

Versarien has announced that it has entered into a commercial agreement with PhoneDevil ("MediaDevil") to launch a new range of earphones and other audio equipment and accessories which will feature Versarien's proprietary Nanene graphene nano platelets and utilize the Nanene brand. In addition, the companies are at an advanced stage of launching a range of mobile phone and tablet device accessories utilizing Nanene, which will also feature the Nanene branding.

The products, which will initially focus on earphones, will be sold on MediaDevil's online platform, in addition to other online retail platforms such as Amazon, along with being supplied to high street retailers and MediaDevil's distribution partners globally. The agreement will see Versarien's Nanene brand feature on all product packaging, for which Versarien will receive a royalty on each product sold.

Chalmers University in Sweden has launched a project, which received Vinnova funding, to design a graphene-based speaker membrane that would be stiff and capable of efficiently dissipating the exceeding heat of the speaker.

A cellulose-graphene composite will be designed, capitalizing on the intrinsic properties of the materials. To demonstrate this, Chalmers plans to use a commercial paper loudspeaker membrane modified with the composite. This way it will be possible to modify any size of paper cones from small 20 mm (tweeters) up to 460 mm (18 woofers) with the same technology, while offering the possibility of decreasing the distortion.

The audio field has been experiencing a major graphene boom recently. In addition to various existing headphones and earbuds, a graphene contact enhancer is now on the market. A new-Zealand based company called Mad Scientist Audio is selling its Graphene Contact Enhancer (GCE) that can be used on any metal-to-metal contacts, such as RCA plugs and sockets, loudspeaker leads, fuses, and so on.

The product is said to 'fill in the gaps' and give a profound improvement in system performance when applied to the important contacts in a system (e.g interconnects, speaker leads, power cords, fuses, tube pins, etc). It reportedly does not suffer from the problems that silver-based products do, namely oxidation and ability to cause short circuits.