The Graphene-Info newsletter (October 19, 2021)

Advanced Material Development (AMD) and Gurit recently announced the securement of £392,605 funding from the Defense and Security Accelerator (DASA), under a competition for wind farm mitigation for radar systems which is funded through the BEIS Net Zero Innovation Portfolio and delivered by MOD.

The DASA funding will enable the development and testing of AMD’s unique graphene-based technology, which when integrated into a turbine’s blade structure, will reduce a wind farm’s interference with radar systems. The nanotechnology aims to enable additional functionality to be incorporated into wind farm structures, including embedded sensors that can monitor the turbine’s structural health, with the aim of increasing the sustainability and longevity of the blades.

Researchers from University of California at Berkeley, along with additional collaborators, have developed a graphene-based technique for visualizing "Wigner crystals" - a unique sort of crystal that had so far remained impossible to visualize as it tends to “melt” when probed. The crystals are named after physicist Eugene Wigner, who predicted that at low densities and cold temperatures, electrons that usually zip through materials would freeze into place, forming an electron ice, or "Wigner crystal".

By placing a graphene sheet over the semiconductor sandwich, the team was able to probe the Wigner crystal with a scanning tunneling microscope without melting the sample and demonstrate the crystalline lattice structure, as Wigner predicted.

Spain-based Graphenano is studying the use of graphene nanotechnology in dentistry. At the 2021 International Dental Show in Cologne, Graphenano Dental exhibited its products, such as the G-CAM disc for CAD/CAM milling systems, which relies on this technology.

“Unlike zirconia, for example, which is still widely used, our graphene nano-reinforced biopolymer G-CAM disc has excellent blending properties,” explained Graphenano Dental General Manager Jesús Martínez. He went on to say that “the appearance is extremely natural and resolves all the mechanical, physico-chemical and biological failures of the rest of the materials currently used in the industry”.

Today we published new versions of all our graphene market reports. Graphene-Info provides comprehensive niche graphene market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about these niche markets. The reports are now updated to October 2021.

The Graphene Batteries Market Report:

• The advantages using graphene batteries
• The different ways graphene can be used in batteries
• Various types of graphene materials
• What's on the market today
• Detailed specifications of some graphene-enhanced anode material
• Personal contact details into most graphene developers

The report package provides a good introduction to the graphene battery - present and future. It includes a list of all graphene companies involved with batteries and gives detailed specifications of some graphene-enhanced anode materials and contact details into most graphene developers. Read more here!

At a recent conference, Ford Motor presented its innovative graphene-enhanced polyurethane (PU) foam that reduces noise in automobiles while also lowering their weight. The material was chosen as a finalist for the Polyurethane Innovation Award, given by the Center for the Polyurethanes Industry (CPI) during the conference. The foam is said to be used in all of Ford's North American vehicles.

One of the biggest challenges in developing the foam was dispersing a nanomaterial like graphene into a viscous polymer and keeping it from collapsing during mixing, said Alper Kiziltas, technical expert, sustainability and emerging materials at Ford.

Directa Plus stated that a previously awarded contract for soil decontamination has now been reactivated for the company's subsidiary, Setcar. The contract, effective from October 2021, for a duration of 12 months, has a value to Setcar of approximately €900,000.

The project was previously halted as a result of an archaeological site being identified within the decontamination site.

Researchers from The University of Manchester and Australia's Monash University have studied the effect of graphene functionalization on a vitrimer matrix (chemically crosslinked network able to undergo covalent bonds exchange reaction under a trigger). The chosen matrix was an epoxy vitrimer which, under heat, can exchange ester bonds, to be reprocessed, healed or relax stress while remaining covalently crosslinked. Existing work on vitrimer shows the aforementioned properties, so the team chose to focus on more unexploited properties of vitrimer for nanocomposites: their dissolution in an appropriate solvent to break the covalent bond under mild condition.

In the paper, the team shows that adding 4 kinds of graphene or functionalized graphene allows to tune some properties of the vitrimer matrix. After characterization, the epoxy is dissolved in ethylene glycol at 180C for 2h, the nanoparticles are subsequently separated and washed. The recovered nanoparticles are then free of any traces of epoxy, and intense characterization shows that despite some functionalization or unfunctionalization of graphene (depending of the initial graphene type used), the nanoparticles keep their core structure and could potentially be re-used in another matrix.

Graphwear, a startup developing graphene-based needle-free approaches to glucose monitoring, recently closed a $20.5 million Series B round. GraphWear is developing a skin-surface-level wearable made of graphene. The sensor is small, about the size of an Apple Watch — but the key piece of technology is actually housed on the bottom. It’s a thin slice of graphene that fits onto the back of the watch, or onto a sticker that can be worn on the abdomen.

Image by Graphwear

This Series B round will be focused on helping the company build upon previous validation studies of the wearable, completing a pivotal trial and submitting for FDA clearance. The round was led by Mayfield, with participation from MissionBio Capital, Builders VC and VSC Ventures.

Reebok launched a new apparel collection, called Thermowarm+Graphene, that uses graphene to help retain heat. Reebok says that by printing graphene on the internal side of the clothing, it helps to retain between 8% and 15% more heat than areas without graphene (that depends on the base fabric the graphene is printed on).

The new collection includes hoodies, jackets and pants. The collection is now available globally on Reebok's online store, with prices ranging from $70 to $140 USD. Reebok plans to release more options in the collection in the future.

A few days ago, we published our quarterly update for our Graphene Supercapacitors Market Report. The update this time was comprehensive, as we overhauled the report.

The supercapacitors market is heating up (this is also true for other energy storage devices), as the world increases its investments in renewable energy and electric vehicles and transportation and supercapacitors play an ever more important role.