The graphene-enhanced composites market is on the rise with many applications popping up around the world. While graphene-enhanced composites are exciting and yield properties like a substantial mechanical strength and conductivity boost, other advanced materials are being developed worldwide to compete or complete graphene's attributes.

One such fascinating material is an artificial dragline spidersilk, developed by an Israel-based startup called Seevix Material Sciences. We contacted Dr. Shmulik Ittah, Co-Founder and CTO at Seevix Material Sciences, to give us a short review of the Company's promising material. Dragline spidersilk is known as an extremely strong fiber, that also manages to be highly elastic and stretchable. In fact, it can stretch up to 30% of its initial length. Spider silk is thus a unique phenomenon in the materials world, toting two such seemingly contradictory properties which usually do not co-reside in one material, whether natural or synthetic.

Directa Plus, a producer and supplier of graphene-based products, recently announced that it has reentered into a 12-month exclusivity agreement and 9-month development agreement with an existing global luxury accessories customer, to produce graphene-enhanced accessories with increased mechanical properties.

'The value of the exclusivity and the development agreement, ahead of entering into an anticipated commercial contract, amounts to approximately €130,000,' the firm said.

Advanced materials company First Graphene has announced that it has entered into a binding Memorandum of Understanding with SupremeSAT for the development of graphene-enhanced components for SupremeSAT's Miniature Satellite Assembly Project. The collaboration with FGR will aim to develop graphene-enhanced components, for both strength and weight reduction, and also heat and radiation shielding.

SupremeSAT is working on the Project with EnduroSAT of Bulgaria. Two leading universities in the USA will be joining this project shortly. The Project will test satellite interconnectivity and data exchange between satellites and a data relay within a constellation. Initially a duo of 1.5U Cube Satellites will be assembled at SupremeSAT's Satellite Assembling facility - Pallekele - Kandy, with hardware for the satellites, training and other variants of engineering support coming from EnduroSAT.

Sweden-based Graphematech, a startup company that develops and sells novel graphene-based nanocomposite materials and services, has announced the development of a scalable method for coating polymer powder and granular with a layer of its Aros Graphene. The Company sees this is a major boost to the polymer composites industry.

This newly developed method is said to be very efficient for obtaining high quality dispersion of Aros Graphene additive inside a polymer matrix without the use of high shear forces in melt mixing. It enormously reduces production costs and minimizes property degradation for both the polymer matrix and the additive while maintaining high quality and homogeneous composite. The invented method can be also applied for coating polymer powder with different materials such as metals, ceramics, fibers, cellulose and more.

Graphenano Composites has signed an agreement with Tecnivial to improve the properties of the composites used in its traffic safety signs for airports, railways and roads by the incorporation of graphene. The signs are reportedly based on a compound formed by Advantex fiber fabrics mixed with thermosetting plastic resins and doped with graphene nanoparticles.

Tecnivial’s Nanotec composite signs incorporate graphene in the resin and are said to offer optimal mechanical and physical properties like lightweight and durability, corrosion resistance, excellent resistance to dampness, wind loads and snow, savings in manufacturing costs, easy installation and handling and lower environmental impact.

First Graphene has provided an update on its work with the University of Adelaide (UoA) on graphene for enhancement of industrial building products. The UoA is testing FGR graphene, with the aim of making smart cement with conductive graphene flakes with aims to address the concerns of cracking and corrosion and provide conductivity for better monitoring of the health of concrete structures.

According to FGR, the first test results indicate the addition of 0.03% standard graphene is the optimal quantity of graphene from the test conducted to date, showing a 22 - 23 % increase in compressive and tensile strength, respectively. The addition of more standard graphene does not reportedly increase or decrease the strength of the concrete material when compared to the control in this test work.

MITO Material Solutions has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant of $224,988 to develop a graphene oxide-based nano-additive that doubles the interlaminar toughness of composite materials utilized in aerospace, recreation, and automotive industries.

The main focus of this project is the development of new hybrid nanofillers based on Graphene Oxide (GO) and Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane (POSS). These nanofillers can be added to epoxy/vinyl ester/polyester matrices through a "Master Batch" process to enhance the interlaminar fracture toughness of commercial composites.

Italian and British researchers have created a unique kind of material, produced by spiders that were "fed" with miscrosopic flaked of graphene and CNTs.

The scientists fed "special" water to three species of spiders. Dispersed within it were microscopic flakes of graphene, or carbon nanotubes. When silk was subsequently gathered from the spiders, it was found that the graphene/nanotubes had been passed into the fibers. As a result, its tensile strength and toughness were much higher than that of regular spider silk.

Applied Graphene Materials has outlined details of a new graphene-enhanced ink technology and signed a development deal with the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Center. A patent for this new development, called Structural Ink, has been registered and once fully commercialized, the product will be targeted at the advanced composites industry.

The technology will aim to enable users to increase mechanical toughness, through the addition of graphene. This is ultimately designed to improve performance, enable further weight reduction and reduce total manufacturing costs.

Australia-based technology minerals company, Talga Resources, recently announced impressive initial concrete prototype strength results from trials undertaken at the commercial concrete/cement laboratory of Betotech Baustofflabor in Germany.

Graphene and graphite enhanced cement and concrete are key priority product targets for Talga. Concrete test prototypes were formulated with Talga graphene and graphite additives combined with a European industry cement and aggregate mixture. Results from the trial showed significant increases, about 26% in flexural strength and 14% in compressive strength, using Talga materials over reference concrete at 28 days cure time.