This presentation will provide a policy and market overview of the European advanced carbon and graphite ecosystem, with a particular focus on its relevance for graphene producers. It will begin with a brief introduction to the European Advanced Carbon and Graphite Materials Association (ECGA) and its role in representing the interests of the sector at EU level. The presentation will then outline the current European landscape for carbon and graphite materials, covering key applications, demand trends, and supply chain dynamics. Finally, it will highlight the EU’s strategic ambitions and policy initiatives affecting advanced carbon materials, including those shaping market opportunities, sustainability requirements, and industrial competitiveness for graphene producers in Europe.

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Although the global graphene industry is continuing to grow and deliver new real-world products, without an understanding of the properties of the materials available in the supply chain these new applications cannot be efficiently developed and improved. Thus, there is a need for reliable, accurate and precise measurements for material testing, which are standardised across the industry and therefore allow end-users to be able to compare commercially-available materials from around the world.
To this end, the underlying metrology (measurement science) enabling industry and directly leading to international standards will be discussed. The current state of international measurement standards within ISO/IEC, covering the material properties of the graphene family, will be detailed.
A key part of developing international measurement standards is the validation of protocols through international interlaboratory comparisons. As examples, the results of interlaboratory studies for Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy of chemical vapour deposition (CVD) grown graphene will be reported, which gathered data from more than a dozen participants across academia, industry (including instrument manufacturers) and National laboratories for each study, revealing key metrology issues in both the measurement and data analysis that must be considered.
Alongside international standards, industry also require rapid, inexpensive and simple techniques to be used as quality control tools. These techniques need to be verified against more accurate and precise measurements, but at the same time do not need the same level of precision themselves. Several techniques and methods developed for industry will be described, such as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Proton Relaxation.

Graphene, first isolated in Manchester in 2004 is now approaching 21 years since its discover. The Manchester Model will discuss the activities in Manchester in creating an ecosystem of companies including many new start-ups and scale-ups not reaching commercialisation in the marketplace including many now achieving scale-up and delivering new products on the marketplace.

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AirMembrane is a startup founded in 2017 that synthesizes and develops applications for atomic-layer graphene. Based on our core technologies of mass-synthesis of graphene by CVD and high-throughput transfer lamination, we are developing graphene field-effect transistors (FETs) and applications based on freestanding graphene films, aiming to enter the electronics field. In this talk, we will introduce our recent challenging developments in AirMembrane and our market development efforts.

Large optical anisotropy over a wide spectral range is crucial for effective light control in many photonic devices. This creates a growing need for natural materials with giant anisotropy (Δn > 1) to meet both scientific and industrial demands.
Bulk transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are highly promising in this regard due to their intrinsically anisotropic van der Waals (vdW) layered structures, which naturally produce strong intrinsic birefringence.
In our study, we trained an ALIGNN graph neural network to predict birefringence using only crystal structures and elemental compositions (Figure 1). To enable this, we collected a database of known layered vdW materials with crystal structures and optical properties calculated via density functional theory (DFT), supplemented with experimental data for a subset of samples.
We then screened crystalline materials databases (MaterialsProject and GNoME) and identified new candidate materials with high optical anisotropy. Subsequent DFT calculations and experimental measurements validated these predictions, demonstrating the effectiveness of our approach in discovering novel anisotropic materials [L. Bereznikova et al., Materials Horizons, 2025].

Graphene field-effect transistors (GFETs) are emerging as a powerful platform for biomedical sensing, providing ultra-sensitive, label-free, and real-time detection of molecular biomarkers. Their compatibility with flexible substrates further enables integration into wearable and implantable electronic systems, advancing continuous and minimally invasive health monitoring technologies.

Recent developments demonstrate that coupling GFET sensor outputs with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms can significantly enhance performance. By analyzing the complex, multidimensional data generated by GFETs, AI models can reduce signal variability, suppress noise, and improve diagnostic accuracy.

This presentation will discuss recent progress in GFET-based biosensing, focusing on fabrication strategies, signal transduction mechanisms, and data-driven analysis methods. The integration of graphene nanoelectronics, flexible device engineering, and AI-assisted signal processing will be examined as a pathway toward scalable, high-precision platforms for next-generation point-of-care and continuous monitoring applications.

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Check4® is a graphene-based semiconductor platform for rapid, amplification-free detection of nucleic-acid biomarkers that is architecturally distinct from graphene field-effect transistor (GFET) biosensors. Rather than relying on gate-modulated transistor behavior, Check4 uses a printed, resistive graphene semiconductor architecture that directly converts molecular binding events into measurable changes in electrical conductance.

Graphene’s atomic thickness and surface-dominated transport enable strong coupling between molecular interactions and electronic response. In the Check4 system, graphene is fabricated as a continuous conductive channel using scalable, wafer-less printing on polymer substrates and functionalized with sequence-specific probes. Binding of complementary nucleic-acid targets perturbs the local electronic environment, producing a reproducible electrical signal without enzymatic amplification, optical labels, or thermal cycling. Sensitivity and single-nucleotide discrimination arise from the intrinsic physics of the graphene–molecule interface rather than transistor gain.

By focusing on direct transport measurements within the graphene channel, Check4 emphasizes simplicity, robustness, and manufacturability. Semiconductor-style electrical metrics, sensor arrays, and algorithmic analysis enable multiplexing and statistical confidence scoring, supporting scalable molecular testing across oncology, infectious disease, and related applications.

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Microwave plasma–based methane cracking enables a localisable route to industrial decarbonisation while delivering scalable production of advanced carbon materials. By stripping carbon from methane pre-combustion, the process avoids CO2 emissions and converts a high-global-warming-potential gas into a cleaner, hydrogen-rich fuel. Simultaneously, it produces a continuous stream of graphene as a solid carbon co-product.

Tight control of plasma conditions allows graphene to be manufactured with consistent specification and reproducible quality at industrial scale and at the point of use, addressing supply chain security and material variability—key barriers to widespread graphene adoption. This assured supply enables integration of graphene into multiple applications, where it delivers enhanced material and processing performance alongside measurable reductions in embodied carbon and operational emissions.

By coupling methane decarbonisation with the production of high-value graphene, microwave plasma technology transforms emissions mitigation into a commercially attractive pathway, aligning climate impact reduction with industrial value creation.

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This presentation explores the evolving frontier of graphene-enabled material systems and their transformative role in shaping next-generation engineered environments. Moving beyond experimental development, it examines how advanced integration of graphene is redefining structural performance, thermal management, and material sustainability at an industrial scale. The session highlights how innovations in dispersion control, interfacial engineering, and multifunctional material design enable unprecedented capabilities across composite structures, construction matrices, and thermally optimised cooling systems. These advances signal a shift toward stronger, more efficient, adaptive, and environmentally aligned materials. The focus is on the convergence of graphene with intelligent manufacturing, automated process control, and scalable production pathways, demonstrating how future infrastructure and energy systems will rely on materials that actively enhance performance while reducing resource intensity. Key challenges, including agglomeration mitigation, repeatability, and lifecycle durability, are addressed alongside emerging technical solutions. It presents a future-forward vision for globally integrated graphene-driven intelligent engineering systems.

Graphene has been widely touted as the super material of the 21st Century, with the potential to transform tens of thousands of products across 45+ industries. Huge sums have been invested in graphene production capacity – particularly in China. So, what’s delaying the Graphene Revolution?

The primary reason U.S. industry has not yet more widely adopted graphene is a mistaken belief that it “is all hype and doesn’t deliver”. This skepticism can be forgiven. Virtually every graphene manufacturer makes attention grabbing claims that have largely not been translated into product performance enhancements. For example, most graphene manufacturers claim that graphene is 200 times stronger than steel. In industries’ experience, however, most commercially available "graphene" added to increase a product’s mechanical strength makes it brittle.

The disconnect between potential industrial users and graphene producers is the fact that graphene is not a single, one size fits all material. Graphene refers to a family of materials spanning a wide spectrum, from graphitic black powder to very high-quality real graphene. Each material has different physical properties which determine its suitability for use in specific applications. Graphene’s critical properties are (1) surface area size, (2) number of atomic layers (thinness) and (3) level of surface and edge defects or functional group contamination. It is the simultaneous presence of large (tens of microns) surface area, 5 or fewer atomic layers and absence of defects – with a strong crystalline structure – that delivers graphene’s potential as an additive material. Conversely, the absence of one or more of these critical properties negatively impacts performance.

The use of graphene to improve an end product should be correlated to the physical properties of each type of graphene. For example, the world’s most widely utilized graphene material – graphene oxide – works well to make asphalt and concrete stronger, tougher and more durable with better resistance to cracking, moisture, heat and aging. But because of graphene oxide’s oxygen functional groups, disrupted sp² lattice and structural defects, it is incapable of delivering, among other things, high electrical conductivity and thermal management. It is also does not confer tensile strength in many applications, including ballistic protection, drones, EMI shielding and high-performance composites.

The broad adoption of graphene by industry requires the appropriate graphene material to be used in a specific application. Once this happens, the Graphene Revolution will be unleashed and tens of thousands of products transformed. This presentation will present data quantifying different graphene material structures and properties and survey the graphene production landscape.

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