Vol 5 Issue 6

The start of a new year is a traditional time to take a forward view. In this issue, we explore some of the future trends that could affect the graphene powder manufacturers. The whole market is beginning to pivot from a technology push to a market pull as the benefits of graphene powder additives start to be realised by more potential customers. This will create a market dynamic that will cause a shakeout that makes some of the existing suppliers evolve into applications specialists or even exit the market. This has not happened yet. Companies that have declared interests in electric vehicle batteries are attracting more investor interest. Even though the benefits of graphene are minimal, the EV market is something investors understand. Gratomic in Canada has increased its share offering to $27m this month, and Direct Plus in Italy is in the process of raising £7m ($9.5m) through the issue of new shares to investors. Keeping with the battery theme, GMG has commissioned its pilot production line in Australia. The production line is making coin cell batteries using its aluminium-ion technology rather than lithium-ion technology. An additional pilot line for making pouch cells is planned for the first half of 2022. More activity has been noted in Canada, this time from GIT Inc. The company has announced a significant trial of its anti-fouling marine paint on nine ships of varying classes. In the UK, a start-up company, Perfect Sense AQ Ltd, has won a European innovation prize for its air quality pin sensor badge. A remarkable point to note is that the CEO is a young lady, 14 years of age and still at school. The research output continues to surprise and impress. In this issue, we summarise work ranging from the pollution control of mining wastewater to a new targeted treatment for breast cancer. In China, a team has used a graphene polymer composite to improve the sound absorption of novel building materials. As usual this issue is packed with many more fascinating developments, so I encourage you to read on and explore. Adrian Nixon, 1st January 2022

I need to start this month’s issue with a correction. In the last issue (Vol 5 iss 3 p.13) I stated that Kostya was moving from Singapore to Russia. Thanks to our rather well-informed readership, I have been told that Kostya is indeed taking up the position of head of the Brain and Consciousness Research Centre in Moscow, Russia. However, he is not leaving the National University of Singapore. Onward with our usual Accuracy, Brevity and Clarity. Normal ABC service resumes. This month we had a meeting with Prof. James Tour and the GEIC. Thanks Debbie. The work on Flash Graphene (FG) is advancing faster than we realised. Prof. Tour testified to Congress about the benefits graphene can bring to buildings and infrastructure in the USA. He testified to Congress in 2017 and now said “Four years later I’m here to report that the future has arrived” (see page 21). You will know that FG can be made from anything that contains carbon. Waste plastic is a favourite (Vol 4 iss 8 p.9). We learned that Flash Graphene can now also be made from furnace black, the by-product from the leading ‘green’ manufacturing process for Hydrogen (see page 22). The Rice University laboratories and spin out company, Universal Matter, are working on the production of Flash Graphene. The pace is fast. Every nine weeks doubles the scale at which FG can be made. Flash Graphene is something we’ll watch closely. If the team can continue to scale up the process it has the potential to make many other methods for making graphene powders obsolete. We have three special features this month. A review the state of the industry for manufacturing large scale sheet graphene, and interviews with two graphene company business leaders, Maví Figueres and Dylan Banks. Such is the pace of change, while we were writing the special feature, General Graphene sent samples of their monolayer and multilayer graphene to the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC). The samples will be sent to the International Space Station (ISS) for testing. We have the first pictures of these large-scale graphene samples in this issue (see page 29) It is worth noting that Graphene has gone from impossible to industrial in just 17 years. Astonishing. Other things to draw your attention to include an emerging controversy with graphene facemasks in Canada (see page 30) and new perovskite 2D materials start to feature in this issue. You’ll discover more as you read on. Adrian Nixon, 1st April 2021