Any news on the graphene front.
Wild ride
In November, the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology announced that its researchers had developed a "
graphene ball", a material that would allow lithium-ion batteries to charge five times faster and have 45 per cent more capacity. That alone could have a big impact on consumer electronics and the automotive industries.
"People are concerned about the comparison of filling up the gas tank and charging your car battery," Attwood says. "Suddenly that's not a problem because you only have to stop for 10 minutes and you can get another 200, 300 miles out of your car."
Given its wild ride in the past decade, graphene also offers a unique case study in how start-ups in emerging technologies can withstand fickle public interest. One company, Skeleton Technologies, of Estonia, has zeroed in on energy storage – "an industry that needs innovation at any cost", Attwood says. Another company, Applied Graphene Materials, raised $US18 million in an initial public offering. "Their stock price has dropped off a lot, but they're an established name in the industry now and are ready to ride a graphene resurgence," Attwood says.
One day, graphene might enable all sorts of cool gadgets, from bendy phones to magazines that connect to the internet. Until then, it'll probably keep on improving things quietly, very differently from its moment in the limelight a decade ago.
"I actually quite like that it will change a lot of stuff without us noticing," Attwood says. "That's what a good material is. It shouldn't be obvious in its improvements. It should be part of the furniture, literally."
The Washington Post.
PERTH, AUSTRALIA; 17 MARCH 2016: Hazer Group Limited (“Hazer” or “the Company”) is pleased to announce that it has finalised negotiations
GRAPHENE DEVELOPMENT COLLABORATION WITH UNIVERSITY OF WA Hazer has reached an agreement with the University of Western Australia (UWA), for an ongoing collaboration between the Company and the University on the further application of the Hazer Process for the production of graphene. The development work will be done in collaboration with Prof Hui Tong Chua, one of the original inventors of the Hazer technology, and Chemical Engineering Program Chair in the University’s Department of Chemical and Mechanical Engineering. Prof Chua has extensive experience in graphene and has already demonstrated the successful synthesis of graphene using the Hazer Process. This collaboration will focus on further tailoring of the Hazer Process reaction conditions to improve the yield and quality of graphene produced. Graphene is a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms with a two-dimensional structure. It has attracted intense attention because of its unique properties such as fast charge carrier mobility, high thermal conductivity and large surface area, with potential applications in a broad range of areas, including improving battery performance, advanced medical devices and solar panels. Large-scale production of graphene remains a challenge to be addressed to enable the commercial development of applications for graphene. Whilst the agreement is still subject to formal documentation being completed, the negotiations cover all core commercial aspects of the collaboration and execution of formal documentation is expected to require less than 6 weeks. Hazer will provide the operating funds for the development work which will see the University provide a full time researcher to work with the Company. 
