Researchers at the AMBER Centre in Dublin have unveiled a new biomaterial capable of regenerating diseased heart tissue for the benefit of cardiac patients. One of the biggest challenges to the recovery of someone who has experienced a major physical trauma such as a heart attack is the growth of scar tissue.
Mobile World Congress is the world’s biggest exhibition focused on high-tech and mobile applications. With over 107 000 attendees from across the technology ecosystem and including a significant proportion of senior-level industry representatives, the 2018 Mobile World Congress was the ideal place for the Graphene Flagship to demonstrate progress in graphene.
Colloidal plasmonic metal nanoparticles are capable of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) for various analytical fields. Despite steady efforts to establish hot spots and obtain optimal SERS signals, it remains a challenge to ensure the accessibility and high density for enhancing Raman activity.
A team of Chinese scientists from South China Normal University and Beihang University has used graphene to create an artificial gas detector that is as good as a dog’s nose. Their work showed that the graphene-based nanoscrolls can mimic a dog’s sensitive sniffer, which is lined with millions of tiny capillaries. Since the capillaries cover such a large surface area, they can detect smells at extremely low concentrations.
The PolyGraph project, a 4-year development project with aims to develop new production techniques to deliver industrial scale quantities of graphene-reinforced thermosetting polymers, has published its results.
University of Adelaide researchers are developing fertilizers with a graphene carrier that could lower environmental impacts and reduce costs for farmers. In partnership with industry, the researchers have demonstrated effective slow release fertilizers can be produced from loading essential trace elements onto graphene oxide sheets.
Almost a century after Heike Kamerlingh Onnes first discovered superconductivity, the factors that determine whether a system will be superconducting and at what temperature remain hard to pin down. However, advances in nanotechnology have given some good pointers where to look, as well as providing promising systems for exploiting superconductivity in real-world applications.
Scientists combined buckyballs, which resemble tiny soccer balls made from 60 carbon atoms, with graphene, a single layer of carbon, on an underlying surface. Positive and negative charges can transfer between the balls and graphene depending on the nature of the surface as well as the structural order and local orientation of the carbon ball. Scientists can use this architecture to develop tunable junctions for lightweight electronic devices.
Researchers at MIT and Harvard University have found that graphene can be tuned to behave at two electrical extremes: as an insulator, in which electrons are completely blocked from flowing; and as a superconductor, in which electrical current can stream through without resistance.
The Korean state-run Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced the development of a graphene-based optical modulator device capable of performing arithmetic and remembering it at the same time. According to ETRI, the device works much like a human brain.
The institute said its researchers have artificially recreated neural synapses in the device. It added the latest achievement will lay the foundation for the development of chips that will have a similar structure to the human brain and may also lead to the development of neuro-computers.