Batteries are the engine room for so much of the modern world, from smartphones to laptops and weird new scooters to the emerging fleets of autonomous trucks. So there are plenty of folks with an interest in pushing battery technology forward, and 2017 brought a raft of exciting breakthroughs aimed at making them safer, longer-lasting, faster-charging and more cost effective. Here’s the best of the bunch.
Advanced materials company, First Graphene Limited (FGR), has provided an update on its development of the graphene based FireStop™ fire retardant material.
Development of the FireStop™ material is being conducted in conjunction with the University of Adelaide as part of the Company’s participation as a Tier 1 participant in the ARC Research Hub for Graphene Enabled Industry Transformation.
In a successful collaboration between the Graphene Flagship and the European Space Agency, experiments testing graphene for two different space-related applications have shown extremely promising results. Based on these results, the Flagship are continuing to develop graphene devices for use in space.
Researchers from Pondicherry University, Puducherry and SRM University, Chennai have recently demonstrated a novel device made of Nickel/ Nickel oxide (Ni/NiO) and graphene that could be used to store hybrid-energy.
The rising use of alternative and renewable energy sources also increases the need to store enormous amounts of energy. Unlike fossil fuels, which can be burnt when there is a need for the energy, renewable sources, like solar and wind, is only available intermittently. Using these sources efficiently requires devices like batteries and supercapacitors to store the energy when it is generated. However, battery technology, unlike other technologies, has not seen huge advancements.
On December 12, Tunghsu Optoelectronic signed Agreement on Cooperation for Jointly Building Smart Cities with the related institutions in Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Mongolia to form a strategic partnership. Meanwhile, Tunghsu Optoelectronic also signed an Exclusive Agency Contract and Sale Contract of more than RMB 10 million with Okura Co., Ltd. for Graphene Thermolysis High Power LED Lights.
Researchers at Columbia Engineering, experts at manipulating matter at the nanoscale, have made an important breakthrough in physics and materials science, recently reported in Nature Nanotechnology. Working with colleagues from Princeton and Purdue Universities and Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, the team has engineered “artificial graphene” by recreating, for the first time, the electronic structure of graphene in a semiconductor device.
An international group of scientists from MEPhI, ITMO University and Hosei University (Tokyo, Japan) has begun working on a hybrid two-dimensional structure based on graphene and quantum dots with controlled optic and photoelectric properties for use in solar batteries. The project will result in a prototype solar battery more efficient than existing batteries.
Among the current CO2 capture technologies, membrane gas separation has many inherent advantages over other conventional techniques. However, fabricating gas separation membranes with both high CO2 permeance and high CO2/N2 selectivity, especially under wet conditions, is a challenge. In this study, sub-20-nm thick, layered graphene oxide (GO)-based hollow fiber membranes with grafted, brush-like CO2-philic agent alternating between GO layers are prepared by a facile coating process for highly efficient CO2/N2 separation under wet conditions.
Graphene has been attracting attention due to its exciting properties and countless ideas for applications benefiting from those properties have been thought of; However, it is rightfully claimed that graphene has yet to transform an actual industry or become a household name.
With that said, graphene seems to be slowly but surely entering the market in all sorts of products. In this post, we list 10 products already commercially available that contain graphene – and these are not all of them. Hopefully this is just the beginning and many more applications will follow.
Researchers at Columbia Engineering, working with colleagues from Princeton and Purdue Universities and Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, have engineered “artificial graphene” by recreating, for the first time, the electronic structure of graphene in a semiconductor device.