In early October, Bluestone Global Tech announced the world's first graphene based Field Effect Transistor. BGT's Grat-FET is a wafer with 9 different GFET chips (or FET arrays), each with 36 FETs. Grat-FET is aimed towards research and development work but BGT says that they are using a fab that can produce these in volume "to meet most demands". So this is suitable for commercial applications.

The price of those GFETs is still expensive though and it is likely that it will take some time before we'll see a product based on those transistors on the market. In any case, BGT says that these transistors may find their way into applications such as gas sensors, chemical sensors, photodetectors, and graphene electronic circuits.

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Many investors are interested in graphene as they want to enjoy the revolution many people think graphene will being to many markets. However up until now there weren't no public pure-play graphene companies. But this changed in October.

So first up is Cientifica. This new company aims to acquire and build businesses that make use of graphene materials. The company will invest in by buying shares or by buying IP, assets or entering into partnerships of joint-venture arrangements. On the 23rd of October, Cientifica took over Avia Health Information stock, disposed of the old business (for £1) and raised £241,000 ($389,000) on the UK's AIM. This is a very small amount for their business model - but there you have it, the world's first public pure-play graphene company

The second company, also from the UK, is Durham Graphene Science. They announced plans to go public, and raise up to £10 million (about $16 million) on the same AIM stock exchange. The company is also changing its name to Applied Graphene Materials (AGM). They will use the funds to increase production capacity and accelerate commercial opportunities with partners. AGM says that trading is expected to begin next month. The company hopes to achieve a market value of £25 million ($40 million).

AGM, a spin-off from Durham University, developed a unique and scalable bottom-up CVD approach to synthesize graphene. Their current annual production capacity is one tonne of graphene (I'm assuming these are graphene flakes). The company will upgrade its plant to eight ton capacity (this will take about 18 months).

Disclosure: I currently do not own stocks in Cientifica or any other graphene company.

A company called Thermene launched a new product based on graphene, the Thermene Graphene Thermal Paste. This paste is based on graphene-oxide flakes and is aimed towards CPU cooling. The company just started selling this new product a few days ago. For $20 you can buy 3 ml of Thermene which should be enough for about a dozen CPUs.

The company says that the material is 50% advanced thermal base, 50% fluid-suspended graphene nano-particles at a high purity of at least 80%. We were told that the graphene supplier is Graphene Supermarket. Specifically they are using graphene oxide flakes (or platelets) which is at least 80% one layer graphene.

Back in June 2013, Haydale (owned by ICL from May 2011) announced that it developed metal-free graphene-based inks. Haydale is developing and marketing carbon materials under the HDPlas brand. The company currently focuses on graphene, CNTs and zinc nanomaterials. Ray Gibbs, ICL's Commercial Directory was kind enough to update us on Haydale's new inks and more aspects of their business and technology.

Haydale supplied graphene materials to over 100 leading research institutes. The company still has low revenues (under $1 million) but is growing quickly. They can now make over 20 tons of graphene ink per year and they hope to see products based on these inks appear in the market in the spring of 2014. Read more about Haydale's products , technology and business here.

Researchers from UC Santa Barbara are introducing a new all-graphene integrated circuit design schema. The researchers suggest a fabrication process that starts with a single-layer graphene sheet, then etches it into ribbons (which turn to semiconductors or metals, depends on the width of the ribbons) and finally metal and gate dielectric are deposited and patterned. They say this design may allow much smaller transistors and interconnects than what's possible with silicon transistors and metal interconnects. They hope this design can be realized in the "near future".

Researchers from Korea's KAIST institute developed a lithium-air rechargeable battery using a nano fiber graphene composite catalyst. This battery has five times greater storage compared to current lithium-ion batteries, and is the highest performing lithium-air batter ever developed. Such batteries may enable electric vehicle to travel almost a 1,000 kilometers on a single charge.

Of course there's still work to be done before this technology can reach the market, for example to increase the stability of the battery. But the researchers are now seeking to collaborate with other organizations to advance the technology.

The National University of Singapore and Fuji Electric (Malaysia) launched a new research project to develop graphene-coated magnetic hard disk media. This project will explore how graphene may be used to provide a protective layer to HDD media. This will enable the magnetic heads to approach closer to the hard disks which will in turn enable higher densities.

The Graphene Research Center at NUS will integrate the graphene unto conventional magnetic media, and then Fuji Electric will conduct necessary assessments to ensure the new product is suitable for commercialization, including corrosion, durability and capacity tests. NUS is the sole proprietor of this new technology.