NPL and Manchester Uni join forces on Graphene

The two organisations will work together on the development of graphene metrology, characterisation and standards essential to industry uptake, with a view to establishing a Joint Centre of Excellence.

The agreement was signed at NPL’s ‘Graphene & 2-D Materials Conference’, this week that looked at how to take the material from research to real world applications.

Graphene has many beneficial properties and characteristics, such as superior mechanical stiffness, elasticity, electrical and thermal conductivity. It is also optically active, chemically inert and impermeable to gases. The possession of all of these properties in a single material makes graphene a potentially disruptive technology in sectors like optoelectronics, flexible electronics, bioelectric devices, energy storage and ultrafiltration.

In a statement NPL said there are many early adopters of graphene, but without standardisation it is difficult for industry to be assured of the quality and properties of the material, and for graphene to be used to its full potential.  Although achieving international standardisation is a key enabler for industry in any area, the process can take many years.