CPI Graphene Centre opens for business

The centre offers access to scale-up capability in the development of graphene, printable and formulation based products

18 Feb 2016 | Editor

The CPI Graphene Centre has opened its doors for business. The new facility integrates with existing development facilities at CPI’s printable electronics and formulation centres based at NETPark, Co. Durham. The new facility which will officially open later this spring assists companies to develop, prove and commercialise products using graphene technologies.

The centre offers access to scale-up capability in the development of graphene, printable and formulation based products and provides a joined up approach in materials development, technology scale up and applications integration to brings together the whole innovation value chain for new and innovative graphene based technologies.

The centre was created by the UK government and funded by Innovate UK to support the commercial growth of the UK graphene industry and operates two specialised facilities at NETPark in Sedgefield, County Durham:

a dedicated laboratory for the functionalisation and characterisation of Graphene at a significant scale, which is produced by a variety of process routes
a facility based in CPI's printable electronics facility and is focused on device development and testing covering membranes, sensors, energy and electronic applications

CPI's Graphene Applications Centre will assess graphene-enabled materials based on a number of key properties, including electrical, mechanical, thermal and morphological, enabling end-users to build the business case to take up Graphene in their products and manufacturing processes.

Tom Taylor Director of CPI's Graphene Centre said, "We are delighted to open the doors of the CPI Graphene Centre. We already have a number of promising projects to focus on in industries such as Aerospace and Healthcare and look forward to developing the landscape for the application of Graphene in many other different industries."

Graphene, first isolated at the University of Manchester in 2004, is tipped to transform many products. Its electrical and thermal conductivity, optical purity and mechanical strength could be used in high-capacity batteries, flexible screens, ultra-fast transistors and other electronic components, super-bright lasers and materials from sports equipment to aircraft wings.

About Centre for Process Innovation (CPI)

The Centre for Process Innovation is a UK-based technology innovation centre and part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. We use applied knowledge in science and engineering combined with state of the art development facilities to enable our clients to develop, prove, prototype and scale up the next generation of products and processes.

Our open innovation model enables clients to develop products and prove processes with minimal risk. We provide assets and expertise so our customers can demonstrate the process before investing substantial amounts of money in capital equipment and training. New products and processes can be shown to be feasible; on paper, in the lab and in the plant before being manufactured at an industrial scale.

By utilising our proven assets and expertise companies can take their products and processes to market faster. There is no down time in production as all of the process development is completed offsite and our technology transfer and engineering teams can help companies to transfer the product or process into full scale production at speed.

Source: Centre for Process Innovation (CPI)