Graphene summit highlights applications and roadmap

The second edition of the Graphene Supply, Application, and Commercialisation summit was held this year in Manchester, the birthplace of graphene. Graphenea CEO Jesus de la Fuente and Business Development Director Iñigo Charola both attended the event last Thursday and Friday.

Photo: University of Manchester

The meeting, hosted by the University of Manchester National Graphene Institute, brought together graphene industry experts, as well as those just entering the exciting field of graphene applications. Large intrernational electronics, transportation, and resource companies, among others, mingled with graphene suppliers and producers, exchanging ideas and experiences.

At the presentations, as well as during the productive lunch and coffee breaks, the meeting served to bring everyone up to speed about the most recent progress in application landmarks, reliable production methods of high, uniform quality and unique material properties to meet requirements for different commercial applications, scalability issues (scaling up production while keeping costs down and bringing up the quality), integration with existing manufacturing equipment, and investment prospects and perspectives. The meeting, similar to all other graphene meetings, brushed upon other monolayer and low-dimensional materials, which possess equally interesting properties often complementary to those of graphene.

“I just want to highlight that Nokia, Philips, Procter and Gamble, Repsol, Lockheed Martin and Thales, among others, have shown outstanding advances in graphene-enabled prototypes and applications developed during the last year”, added Jesus de la Fuente. Nokia presented their high-speed humidity sensor based on Graphene Oxide, Lockheed Martin their water filtration membrane using CVD Graphene, and Philips showed the flexible transparent conductor for OLEDs using our CVD graphene.

Photo: Stijn Goossens (right, ICFO) demonstrating a working prototype of a graphene photo sensor to Iñigo Charola (left, Graphenea) and Jani Kivioja (center, Nokia)

Graphenea is certainly at the heart of the growing graphene industry, as one of the world's top providers for both the science and industry. We continue to strenghten our ties with other graphene business leaders, as we network with fresh businesses that are just entering the arena. Keeping a strong tie with the industry is an essential component of our business strategy, as we initiate and participate in new international projects, collaborations, and application development. We'll keep bringing news about our activities in particular, but also from the graphene industry at large, as we experience it at the very exciting graphene meetings and conferences throughout the summer.