The University of Adelaide announced two new research initiatives in South Australia. Firstly, Valence Industries signed an agreement to establish a graphene research center in South Australia. Valence will fund the research program with 800,000 AUD ($740,000 USD) over 3.5 years. Valence anticipates that they will manage to produce commercial quantities of graphene in 2014, and they will commence initial sales of graphene in the first half of 2014.

The University of Adelaide also launched another research program, funded by Archer Exploration. This program focuses on commercial uses for the specific graphite and graphene types originating from Archer's deposits - especially in the agricultural and environmental markets.

Haydale is set to become the 4th UK-listed graphene company, as they plan to raise £10 million (about $16.6 million) via an IPO on the UK's AIM. Besides funding the company's regular operations (based around its proprietary plasma technology and graphene commercialization process), the money could also be used for acquisition purposes or to form strategic alliances. The market value of the company will probably be in the low £30 million range ($50 million).

Haydale hopes that the IPO will take place in mid-April. If Haydale's plans go through. Haydale will join Cientifica (which recently failed to raise more funds), Applied Graphene Materials and Graphene NanoChem.

Haydale is developing and marketing carbon materials under the HDPlas brand. The company currently focuses on graphene, CNTs and zinc nanomaterials. The company also developed metal-free graphene-based inks. In October 2013 we posted an article explaining Haydale's business and technology.

Last month we reported that UK-based Perpetuus Carbon Technologies entered the graphene supply market and will soon start producing graphene materials (GNPs) in its new 100 annual-ton factory. Now the company launched two new graphene based products.

The first is a graphene based ink which Perpetuus claims is the world's most conductive graphene ink. The ink is already available in kilogram batches. The second product is an ITO alternative polymer coating that includes nano surface-engineered graphene. The material is flexible, conductive, cheap and can be produced in commercial quantities.

You can read more about these new graphene products here.

The UK government announces it will allocate new funds for several new science projects - for big data research, cell therapy and graphene. The UK will spend £19 million ($31 million) on graphene in the next five years.

Most of the graphene fund (£14 million) will go towards establishing the UK's Graphene Applications Innovation Centre (GAIC) which will be established by the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI). This innovation center will help small and medium enterprise gain access to graphene technologies.

Graphene was first isolated in Manchester in 2004, and since then the UK is hoping to become a global graphene player. In 2011 the government allocated £50 million towards four graphene initiatives (including Manchester University's National Graphene Institute). In December 2012 the UK announced an extra funding of £21.5 million to boost graphene research and development in the UK.