National Highways will trial the use of graphene along three miles of the A1’s northbound carriageway between Newton on the Moor and West Cawledge, Northumberland, UK. If successful, using graphene could make roadworks less frequent and make roads smoother and more reliable.

National Highways is carrying out the trials with the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC) at The University of Manchester and Pavement Testing Services (PTS).

The Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC) at The University of Manchester was the venue for the latest act of pioneering work in using advanced materials in construction to promote sustainability in the sector.

Nationwide Engineering, Tier 2 partners of the GEIC, re-laid parking bays on the service road adjacent to the Centre earlier this month, using its graphene-enhanced Concretene product as a ‘living lab’ to test performance in exterior conditions.

Construction company Nationwide Engineering has reported the laying of the world's first graphene-enhanced concrete slab engineered for sustainability in a commercial setting.

Team from The University of Manchester and Nationwide Engineering laying the world's first engineered graphene concrete in a commercial setting. Credit: The University of Manchester/Nationwide Engineering

The venue for this innovation milestone is located a couple of miles east of the ancient monument of Stonehenge - the new Southern Quarter gym in Amesbury's Solstice Park, owned and run by military veterans and due to open in summer 2021. This enterprise has been made possible by a joint venture between Nationwide Engineering and The University of Manchester.

Brazil’s largest steel producer, Gerdau, has launched a new company called Gerdau Graphene, which will develop and market products based on graphene materials.

The new company will also work in partnership with the University of Manchester as part of a global strategic alliance, with the aim of becoming a leading developer of graphene-enhanced products in the Americas.

Researchers at The University of Manchester’s National Graphene Institute have created optical devices with a unique range of tunability, covering the entire electromagnetic spectrum, including visible light.

The new study lists the possible applications for this ‘smart surface’ technology, that range from next-generation display devices to dynamic thermal blankets for satellites and multi-spectral adaptive camouflage.

The collaboration between the University of Manchester and British sportswear brand Inov-8 started in 2017 and has already produced the G-Series range of graphene-enhanced shoes as well as a pair of hiking boots which utilize graphene, and also the X-Talon range of footwear. Now, Inov-8 has unveiled its latest trail running shoe, which is designed with new Graphene-enhanced foam.

inov-8’s new Trailfly Ultra G 300 Max shoe (Image credit: inov-8)

The cushioned foam, called 'G-Fly’, features as part of inov-8’s Trailfly Ultra G 300 Max shoe - a product aimed at "ultra runners".

Scientists from MIPT, Moscow Pedagogical State University and the University of Manchester have created a highly sensitive terahertz detector based on the effect of quantum-mechanical tunneling in graphene. The sensitivity of the device is said to already be superior to that of commercially available analogs based on semiconductors and superconductors, which opens up prospects for applications of the graphene detector in wireless communications, security systems, radio astronomy, and medical diagnostics.

Information transfer in wireless networks is based on transformation of a high-frequency continuous electromagnetic wave into a discrete sequence of bits. This technique is known as signal modulation. To transfer the bits faster, one has to increase the modulation frequency. However, this requires synchronous increase in carrier frequency. A common FM-radio transmits at frequencies of hundred megahertz, a Wi-Fi receiver uses signals of roughly five gigahertz frequency, while the 5G mobile networks can transmit up to 20 gigahertz signals. This is far from the limit, and further increase in carrier frequency admits a proportional increase in data transfer rates. Unfortunately, picking up signals with hundred gigahertz frequencies and higher is an increasingly challenging problem.

Researchers at The University of Manchester, led by Sir Andre Geim and Dr Alexey Berdyugin, have discovered and characterized a new family of quasiparticles named 'Brown-Zak fermions' in graphene-based superlattices. This was achieved by aligning the atomic lattice of a graphene layer to that of an insulating boron nitride sheet, dramatically changing the properties of the graphene sheet.

The study follows years of successive advances in graphene-boron nitride superlattices which has previously allowed the observation of a fractal pattern known as the Hofstadter's butterfly - and now, with this current work, the researchers report another highly surprising behavior of particles in such structures under applied magnetic field.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from The University of Manchester have developed a new graphene-based testing system for disease-related antibodies, initially targeting a kidney disease called Membranous Nephropathy.

The new instrument, based on the principle of a quartz-crystal microbalance (QCM) combined with a graphene-based bio-interface, is said to offer a cheap, fast, simple and sensitive alternative to currently available antibody tests.

In December 2018, Manchester University’s Graphene Engineering Innovation Center (GEIC) first opened, aiming to accelerate the commercial impact of graphene and help realize its potential to revolutionize many sectors.

James Baker, the CEO at Graphene@Manchester (G@M) who's responsible for the development and delivery of the business strategy which includes the National Graphene Institute (NGI) and the GEIC, kindly agreed to answer a few questions we had and update us on the latest from the GEIC.