The Graphene-Info newsletter (January 18, 2022)

Haydale has announced that it has been awarded a SMARTCymru grant from The Welsh Government that will enable the Company to progress with the development of its anti-counterfeiting ink technology, PATit.

The Project has a total cost of £169,000 and is expected to take six months to complete. The SMARTCymru grant, which is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund, will cover about 50% of the anticipated project costs.

Tata Steel has developed a new product, a few-layer film of rGO along with its collaborators at CeNS, Bengaluru. The company is now starting to mass-produce the films and offer them to application developers.

Figure 1: (a) Digital image of rGO/Cu foil (5 cm2). Contactact angle (b) and AFM height profile (c) on rGO/Cu

The rGO film is produced (using a modified CVD process) on copper. The film's average thickness is 5-10 nm and offers a corrosion rate of 0.02 mm/year (Tafel) and a water contact angle of ~ 97°.

These unique properties make the film suitable to protect the copper from corrosion, chemical attacks, and thermal oxidations. It also makes copper hydrophobic and can act as an antibacterial surface.

Graphene Innovations Inc has signed a new Tier-1 partnership with Manchester University's GEIC center. The company will establish a local company (GIIM) in the UK, with plans to hire 10 employees in the next few months.

The GEIC partnership enables GIIM to equip a private lab in the facility, with access to highly specialised applications labs and equipment, plus the unique academic and engineering expertise of the world-leading graphene and 2D materials community at the University.

Applied Graphene Materials has announced that England’s Environment Agency (EA) has successfully completed its first application of AGM’s harsh environment anti-corrosion product to one of its flood defense assets on the North East coast of England. The coastal flood defense gates were coated with AGM’s new graphene-enhanced Genable CX-based anti-corrosion primer.

The AGM’s coating system used in this project is a further iteration of AGM’s product offerings for barrier performance and anti-corrosion application. It represents the culmination of 18 months of in-depth testing and evaluation of anti-corrosion performance for both salt-spray and immersion in harsh test regimes.

Emberion recently raised €6 million in funding to further develop their infrared imaging business. Currently, Emberion is one of the leaders in the development of these technologies, enabled by graphene and other layered materials.

Graphene Flagship partner Emberion develops high-performance SWIR sensors for imaging technologies. These devices detect light in both the visible and short-wave infrared (SWIR) wavelengths, enabling new applications in machine vision – used in surveillance, autonomous driving, food processing, waste sorting, and more. Emberion also leads Graphene Flagship Spearhead Project GBIRCAM, to design cheaper and more efficient broadband infrared devices.

Advanced Material Development recently announced a new InnovateUK “Analysis 4 Innovators” grant to work on validating its next generation novel nanomaterial-based gas sensors. AMD is working with the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) on the development and testing of devices using advanced testing equipment, and measurement and analysis experience.

The next generation of air quality monitors will rely on low power sensing elements which can be connected remotely to support more detailed and localized emissions monitoring. This three-month project seeks to validate novel nanomaterial-based sensors which AMD has recently developed utilizing its functionalized nanomaterials. For instance, AMD's Photonic Crystal work incorporates various nanomaterials into the polymeric structure, of which graphene is the main constituent.