Fraunhofer scientists have developed biosensors with graphene electrodes, produced cheaply and simply by roll-to-roll printing. A system prototype for mass production has already been established. This may change the current situation in which cell-based biosensors can be quite expensive to make, which often prevents them from being used. Cost factors for sensors that perform measurements electrically are the expensive electrode material and complex production.

Cell-based biosensors measure changes in cell cultures via electrical signals. This is done using electrodes which are mounted inside the Petri dish or the wells of a 'well plate'. If added viruses destroy a continuous cell layer on the electrodes, for example, the electrical resistance measured between the electrodes is reduced. In this way, the effect of vaccines or drugs (for example) can be tested: the more effective the active ingredient is, the smaller the number of cells that are destroyed by the viruses and the lower the measured resistance change will be. Also toxicity tests, such as on cosmetic products, can function according to the same principle and may replace animal experiments in the future. Another advantage is that if biosensors are linked to an evaluation unit, measurements can be continuous and automated.

A team of researchers at the University of Minnesota and Northwestern University, USA, have developed a printing method to produce flexible graphene micro-supercapacitors with a planar architecture suitable for integration in portable electronic devices.

The new process, referred to as ‘self-aligned capillarity-assisted lithography for electronics’ (SCALE), begins with the creation of a polymer template, generated by stamping a UV-curable polymer with a PDMS mold. High-resolution inkjet printing is then used to deposit a graphene ink into the template, which is annealed using a xenon lamp to form the electrodes. In the final step, a polymer gel electrolyte is printed onto the template over the electrodes to complete the configuration.

Grafoid, a leading graphene R&D and investment company, announced its entry into the global industrial coatings market with the introduction of its patent pending GrafeneX graphene coatings technology. Grafoid describes the GrafeneX technologies as a cost-effective way of laying down graphene coatings on large surface areas.

GrafeneX is a novel technology that creates a platform for the deposition of graphene and chemically functionalized graphene coatings. This process provides Grafoid with the capability to apply its diverse graphene-based coatings to many different types of material substrates with controllable levels of surface coverage, thickness etc. to meet precise end user requirements.

Researchers from the University of Exeter have developed a new method for creating entire device arrays directly on the copper substrates used for commercial manufacture of graphene. Complete and fully-functional devices can then be transferred to a substrate of choice, such as silicon, plastics or even textiles.

This new approach is said to be cheaper, simpler and less time consuming than conventional ways of producing graphene-based devices, thus holding real potential to open up the use of cheap-to-produce graphene devices for a host of applications from gas and biomedical sensors to displays.

Researchers at MIT and the University of Michigan developed a new roll-to-roll manufacturing method, that promises to enable continuous production using a thin metal foil as a substrate, in an industrial process where the material is deposited onto the foil as it moves from one spool to another. The resulting size of the sheets would be limited only by the width of the rolls of foil and the size of the chamber where the deposition would take place.

The new process is an adaptation of a CVD method already used at MIT (and additional places) to make graphene. The new system uses a similar vapor chemistry, but the chamber is in the form of two concentric tubes, one inside the other, and the substrate is a thin ribbon of copper that slides smoothly over the inner tube. Gases flow into the tubes and are released through precisely placed holes, allowing for the substrate to be exposed to two mixtures of gases sequentially. The first region is called an annealing region, used to prepare the surface of the substrate; the second region is the growth zone, where the graphene is formed on the ribbon. The chamber is heated to approximately 1,000 degrees Celsius to perform the reaction.

The U.S based Graphene Frontiers, developer of graphene materials and device technology, announced securing a U.S patent (No. 8,822,308) for the transfer of graphene films between surfaces using roll-to-roll processes.

The patented process is meant to be a cost-effective, etch-free transfer process, allowing manufacturers to avoid dissolving or consuming the substrate metal. It is reportedly also compatible with other materials, including nanomaterials.

Researchers at Purdue University are developing a new graphene "nanopetals" mass production process. Those nanopetals are graphene-based vertical nanostructures that look like tiny rose petals, and they have applications in sensors, heat-management, supercapacitors and batteries. This research is funded with a $1.5 million grant from the NSF.

The researchers hope to increase the production speed of nanopetal-coated surfaces to 10 square meters per hour, using a roll-to-roll process. This is a dramatic increase to current "laboratory-scale" production rate. The new process will use a vacuum-based plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD).

Sony has developed a new graphene producing process that use a roll-to-roll method. They have built a machine that can produce graphene sheets up to 100 meters in length (23 cm width), and the resulting sheet is the largest area graphene sheet in the world by far (the previous record was Samsung's 40" sheet from back in 2011).

Sony's new process integrates CVD and roll-to-roll, at a temperature of 1,000°C. The idea is to directly apply a current to a copper (Cu) foil that is the catalyst of graphene and a substrate for the CVD method so that only the Cu foil is heated. As a result, the thermal load on the entire machine was drastically reduced.

MIT's new Center for Graphene Devices and Systems (MIT-CG) has an ambitious plan - to produce a one-kilometer square sheet of graphene. They are currently starting to develop the basic science and technology - which is based on the printing press. The idea is to grow graphene in a roll to roll process. MIT hopes that if they manage to develop this technology they'll enable a whole new graphene industry.

Currently they've been able to grow small sheets only using this technology (a "few centimeters" in size). The largest graphene sheet made to date was 30" square (produced by Japanese and Korean researches in June 2010) - which was also made in a roll-to-roll printing process. There were reports of a 40" graphene sheet produced by Samsung in January 2011 but these reports weren't confirmed.