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.

The Manchester-based Nobel laureate Professor Sir Kostya Novoselov has taken part in creating a video animation art project shedding light on graphene's unique qualities and potential. Professor Sir Kostya Novoselov worked with artist Mary Griffiths to create Prospect Planes a video artwork resulting from months of scientific and artistic research and experimentation using graphene.

Prospect Planes will be unveiled as part of The Hexagon Experiment series of events at the Great Exhibition of the North 2018, Newcastle, on August 17. The six-part Hexagon Experiment series was inspired by the the Friday evening sessions that led to the isolation of graphene at The University of Manchester by Novoselov and Sir Andre Geim.

Rice University researchers have found that fracture-resistant rebar graphene is more than twice as tough as pristine graphene. While on the two-dimensional scale, graphene is stronger than steel, its extremely thin nature makes it subject to ripping and tearing. Rebar graphene is the nanoscale analog of rebar (reinforcement bars) in concrete, in which embedded steel bars enhance the material’s strength and durability. Rebar graphene, developed by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour in 2014, uses carbon nanotubes for reinforcement.

In a new study, Rice materials scientist Jun Lou, graduate student and lead author Emily Hacopian and collaborators, including Prof. James Tour, stress-tested rebar graphene and found that nanotube rebar diverted and bridged cracks that would otherwise propagate in unreinforced graphene.

As part of a national research collaboration, Spanish researchers including the ICN2 have reached a milestone in graphene research, that potentially brings science a step closer to using graphene in filtration and sensing applications.

The researchers have successfully synthesized a graphene membrane with pores whose size, shape and density can be tuned with atomic precision at the nanoscale. Engineering pores at the nanoscale in graphene can change its fundamental properties. It becomes permeable or sieve-like, and this change alone, combined with graphene's intrinsic strength and small dimensions, points to its future use as the most resilient, energy-efficient and selective filter for extremely small substances including greenhouse gases, salts and biomolecules.

Researchers from Kyoto University and Osaka University report for the successful synthesis of helical nanographene. These graphene constructs previously existed only in theory, so successful synthesis may offer applications like nanoscale induction coils and molecular springs for use in nanomechanics.

"We processed some basic chemical compounds through step-by-step reactions, such as McMurry coupling, followed by stepwise photocyclodehydrogenation and aromatization," explains first author Yusuke Nakakuki. "We then found that we had synthesized the foundational backbone of helical graphene."

The Wuxi Graphene Industry Development & Demonstration Zone (in Wuxi, China - near Shanghai) is an impressive graphene center (we visited Wuxi in 2017). The center recently renovated its demonstration room, and sent us this video showcasing the many graphene products and materials under development or in production at the center.

There are a few new graphene projects underway at Wuxi. One example is a graphene additive to engine lubrication oils, used in the Xichuang G6 graphene oil, which is able to reduce gasoline consumption by 5-15% compared to current oils.

Today we are happy to publish this short graphene explanation video:

If you're interested in using this video in your web site, feel free to embed it and help spread the word on graphene!

Scientists at Rice University have enhanced their formerly invented LIG technique to produce what may become a new class of edible electronics. The Rice lab of Prof. James Tour is investigating ways to write graphene patterns onto food and other materials to embed conductive identification tags and sensors into the products themselves.

"This is not ink," Tour said. "This is taking the material itself and converting it into graphene". The process is an extension of the Tour lab's perception that anything with adequate carbon content can be turned into graphene. In recent years, the lab has developed and expanded upon its method to make graphene foam by using a commercial laser to transform the top layer of an inexpensive polymer film.

In early October 2017 we posted about Nanotech Engineering's novel graphene-enhanced solar panel, a post that raised many eyebrows. Nanotech says that their graphene panel reaches a 92% efficiency (compared to around 20% for large commercial silicon-based PV panels), and the cost per Watt of their panel will be 0.55 cents (compared to a US average of $3.26 for silicon PV panels).

Graphene-CNT junctions (source: Rice University)

Our post quoted Nanotech's PR, stating that Jeffrey Grossman, Professor of Engineering at MIT verified the technology and said that Pound for pound, the new solar cells produce up to 1,000 times more power than conventional photovoltaics.

A research team from the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland and Sapienza University in Rome developed a new loud speaker that is driven by a light signal - and without electricity. The idea is to use modulated light that shines on a 3D graphene sponge. The audio is achieved via a highly-efficient photo-mechanism.

The researchers say that unlike conventional loudspeakers, this high-fidelity photo-speaker does not rely on vibrations to produce the sound - and it does not need any type of electrical connection or complicated system for sound generation. Using an optical pulse train, this loudspeaker allows a completely digital operation for frequencies from acoustic to ultrasound.