In the first bit of this week’s graphene news, the UK”s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has joined the Graphene Stakeholders Association according to an Aug. 5, 2013 NPL news release,

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has joined the Graphene Stakeholders Association (GSA) as a lifetime member. NPL will work closely with the GSA to promote the responsible development of graphene and graphene-enabled technologies and applications.

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“We foresee a significant role for NPL in the GSA in helping to develop common and accepted nomenclature, definitions, standard metrology and testing methods that will help foster and facilitate the development of graphene and graphene-enabled applications globally,” stated GSA co-founder, Stephen Waite. “We are delighted with NPL’s decision to join the GSA and look forward to working closely with Andrew Pollard and his colleagues in the months and years ahead,” says Waite.

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NPL’s Andrew Pollard, who joins the GSA’s Advisory Board, said: “NPL has a leading role in the development of measurement techniques and international standards for graphene and 2-D materials, and the formation of the GSA is extremely well-timed as graphene progresses from the research laboratory to commercialisation. This partnership between two organisations with such well-aligned aims should enable the widely-predicted growth of a global graphene industry.”

I mentioned the founding of the Graphene Stakeholders Association in an April 23, 2013 posting. At the time I noted the group’s very interesting Graphene Industry Information page, which features these tidbits,

China has published more graphene patents than any other country, at 2,204, ahead of 1,754 for the U.S., 1,160 for South Korea, and 54 for the U.K.

South Korea’s Samsung has more graphene patents than any single company.

Nokia is part of the 74-company Graphene Flagship Consortium that is receiving a €1 billion ($1.35 billion) grant that the E.U. announced in January 2013.

Nokia, Philips, U.K. invention stalwart Dyson, weapons and aerospace company BAE Systems, and others have committed £13 million ($20.5 million) to a graphene development center [Cambridge Graphene Centre as per my Jan. 24, 2013 posting] at Cambridge University, to go along with £12 million ($18.9 million) from the British government. [Also, there’s a new National Graphene Institute being built in Manchester, UK {my Jan. 14, 2013 posting}.]

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Graphene is prohibitively expensive to make today. As recently as 2008, it cost $100 million to produce a single cubic centimeter of graphene.

Researchers are working on methods to reduce the cost of manufacturing and help make graphene a ubiquitous fabrication material.

Graphene film companies face major commercialization hurdles, including reducing costs, scaling-up the substrate transfer process, overcoming current deposition area limitations, and besting other emerging material solutions.

This leads to the 2nd bit of graphene news, Cientifica (a business consultancy focusing on emerging technologies) has released its Graphene Opportunity Report, from the report’s webpage (Note: Links have been removed),

A decade ago when we published the first edition of the Nanotechnology Opportunity Report, there were predictions of untold riches for early investors, the replacement of all manufacturing as we know it, and the mythical trillion-dollar market.

Cientifica went against the grain by predicting that it would be hard for anyone to make money from nanomaterials, and that the real value would be in the applications. This has been borne out by the failure of even large global companies such as Mitsubishi Chemical and Bayer to make much headway with fullerenes and carbon nanotubes, and the failure of countless smaller nanomaterials producers.

On the other hand companies making use of nanomaterials, Germany’s Magforce Technologies and the US based BIND Therapeutics have shown what can be achieved when nanomaterials are applied to large addressable markets, in this case drug delivery.

Is Graphene The New Nanotech?

A similar amount of hype currently surrounds graphene, with wild predictions of applications ranging from microelectronics to water
treatment. This report examines these claims and taking the rational approach for which Cientifica is known, considers how valid these are and evaluates the chances of success.

We also look in detail at the graphene producers. Graphene comes in a wide range of forms, each with its own particular set of addressable applications. No one producer covers all applications and many are destined to be niche players. As with nanomaterials, many companies currently producing graphene are destined to burn brightly and then be unceremoniously snuffed out when scale up or access to applications fails to materialise.

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As with all Cientifica reports, we look beyond the hype and take a rational and dispassionate look at the entire graphene value chain, from graphite to THz electronics. There will be long-term winners, and we indicate what strategies are required to join this small elite band, and we provide a wealth of lessons from our previous experience in nanotechnologies and life sciences.

Most importantly, we look beyond the narrow graphene or nanotechnology worlds and assess graphene’s chances of success in competing with a wide range of other technologies, many of which have not been considered by those concentrating solely on graphene.

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The Graphene Opportunity Report is available at GBP 2000/EUR 2300/USD 3000.

You can access the report’s Table of Contents here.