Description
Two graphene companies have announced they are moving to bigger premises to support the scale up of their operations. In the UK, AEH innovative Hydrogel has ‘graduated’ from its laboratories at the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC) and moved to larger premises nearby in Bolton, Greater Manchester. In Canada, GIT coatings announced the opening of their new $5million Global headquarters and flagship operations site in Nova Scotia. We will continue to watch how these companies grow.
The GEIC now has two of its partner companies officially reach billion-dollar valuations. Graphene Innovations Manchester (GIM), led by Dr Vivek Koncherry, announced this week that it is creating not one, but many unicorns (A unicorn is a startup company valued at over US$1 billion which is privately owned and not listed on a share market. Vivek already has one company valued over $1 billion. The other billion-dollar company is Hydrograph Clean Power Inc, led by Kjirstin Breure. This is a publicly listed company on the Canadian stock exchange and its share price went above the $3 (Canadian dollars) mark this month making its market capitalisation over a billion dollars.
A small development that is easy to dismiss is the launch of a Kickstarter project to sell graphene enhanced cargo jackets. The graphene is said to offer thermal projection and water resistance. The interesting thing about this project is that the Kickstarter is oversubscribed by 20 times. There is a lot of interest in graphene and it evidently has marketing pull.
Our cover image this month is a representation of a piece of graphene super laminate (GSL) material in Earth orbit being subjected to attack by atomic oxygen (AO). AO is a big problem for Earth orbiting spacecraft. It corrodes almost everything it comes into contact with. Coating surfaces with noble metals like gold is one way of protecting space infrastructure assets. We examined the effect of AO on samples of pyrolytic graphite tested in space and discovered that this material has a similar AO resistance as gold. This means that GSL will probably be the world’s most AO resistant material. Our special feature is the place to look to find out more.
As well as the special feature, you will find plenty more to catch your interest in this issue, dear Reader.
Adrian Nixon
1st November 2025
