LIGC Application, an Israeli maker of Laser-Induced Graphene filters (LIG), recently announced raising $3 Million in Series A funding. Wuhan-based public listed company Hubei Forbon Technology made the investment.
The company intends to use the funds to scale and manufacture its filters.
Materials scientists at Rice University and the University of Pennsylvania have published an article calling for a collective, global effort to fast-track the mass production of 2D materials like graphene and molybdenum disulfide.
In their perspective article, journal editor-in-chief Jun Lou and colleagues make a case for a focused, collective effort to address the research challenges that could clear the way for large-scale mass production of 2D materials.
Researchers at Rice University design a "shield" made of graphene oxide, that helps particles destroy antibiotic-resistant bacteria and free-floating antibiotic resistance genes in wastewater treatment plants.
The labs of Rice environmental scientist Pedro Alvarez and Yalei Zhang, a professor of environmental engineering at Tongji University, Shanghai, introduced these microspheres wrapped in graphene oxide. Alvarez and his partners in the Rice-based Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT) have worked toward quenching antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" since first finding them in wastewater treatment plants in 2013.
Rice University scientists led by Prof. James Tour have turned adhesive tape into a silicon oxide film (mixed with laser-induced graphene) which replaces troublesome anodes in lithium metal batteries.
At left, a copper current collector with a laser-induced silicon oxide coating created at Rice University. At right, a scanning electron microscope image of the coating created by lasing adhesive tape on the copper collector. Courtesy of the Tour Group
The researchers used an infrared laser cutter to convert the silicone-based adhesive of commercial tape into the porous silicon oxide coating, mixed with a small amount of laser-induced graphene from the tape’s polyimide backing. The protective silicon oxide layer forms directly on the current collector of the battery.
As researchers and companies all over the world set out to battle the Coronavirus pandemic, many are revisiting graphene as a material with potential for helping to win this fight. The reasons for such potential could be found in graphene's known antibacterial/antiviral properties, its beneficial traits for medical sensors and devices and more.
Graphene has been shown in the past as extremely useful for creating various sensors. Earlier this month, a team led by Boston College researchers used a sheet of graphene to track the electronic signals inherent in biological structures, in order to develop a platform to selectively identify deadly strains of bacteria. In October 2019, Rice University team under chemist James Tour transformed their laser-induced graphene (LIG) into self-sterilizing filters that grab pathogens out of the air and kill them with small pulses of electricity. Commercially sold graphene-based sensors exist, like the graphene oxide (GO) sensor developed by the ICN2 Nanobioelectronics and Biosensors group that was added in 2016 to the list products offered by Biolin Scientific, a prestigious instrumentation company devoted to the production of analytical devices. The Q-Sense GO sensor enables interaction studies of GO with various analytes (measured substances) of interest and may open the door to various applications with interest for diagnostics, safety/security and environmental monitoring.