GRAPHENE: £120m down, UK.gov finds it's still a long way from commercial potential

Graphene, the material with many extraordinary properties, has swallowed around £120m in UK government funds, but development and commercialisation is proving tortuously slow and increasingly dogged with disappointment. So concerned are MPs with the lack of progress that late last year they conducted a series of hearings via …

[Roland6]

"First, the status of many patent families based on graphene is now being hampered by "patent trolls" – wherein opportunists are pushing through patents that are close to those being applied for by reputable institutions and researchers."

Well given the UK government has it's own patent organisation, it is a relatively simple measure to include in the patent investigation and approval process a simple check to see if the patent applicant has a physical example of their patent... if not - as will be likely, deem the patent to of an idea and thus void then charge the patent applicant with intent to commit fraud.

[macjules]

Oh dear. It looks like UKGOV actually believed the hype from the UKIPO that graphene would be making £390m a year just in patent returns by 2024. This was completely based on a guesstimate that Samsung might find a use for graphene in their phones. To quote UKIPO (in 2014 mark you):

Since then the activity in this area has continued to grow in a seemingly exponential manner, as has the media hype surrounding it, with a predicted growth in graphene markets from $20 million in 2014 to more than $390 million in 2024.

A classic example of the snake feeding off its own tail.

[Matthew Smith]

What a complete waste

We could have bought an entire F35 for that.

[Tom 7]

Re: What a complete waste

But not a working one.

[Whitter]

Don't discount the experience gained in material production techniques while this research has gone on. Maybe graphine won't be a money spinner, but the next material will start off with a wealth of production experience behind it. Assuming one doesn't loose large numbers of experienced academics who just so happen to be from other European countries... oh well. £120m down the tubes then.

[fnusnu]

So much for so called 'experts'

These are exactly the people who should not and must not be trusted to spend other people's money:

planners, economists, horizon scanners and civil servants

[ToddRundgrensUtopia]

Re: So much for so called 'experts'

At least the MP mentioned, Chris Green has a technical background:

engineer in the Mass Spectrometry industry for nearly twenty years,

[Anonymous Coward]

"but no one seems quite sure where such a sizeable amount is being spent."

Maybe they're spending it all on pencils ?

[Roland6]

Re: "but no one seems quite sure where such a sizeable amount is being spent."

Thought it was obvious:

"Funding for the NGI will come from £38m from the Government, as part of £50m allocated for graphene research, and the University has applied for £23m from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)." [http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/first-look-at-world-leading-graphene-institute ]

The NCI is a new build started in 2013, so a significant amount of money has been spent on glass, bricks and mortar. So practically zero monies todate spent on product R&D...

"The University of Manchester is to build a £60m Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC)." [http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/new-60m-engineering-innovation-centre-to-be-based-in-manchester ]

This also is a new build started in 2013, so once again a significant amount of money spent on glass, bricks and mortar...

Things aren't quite so clear about the Graphene Applications Centre located at NETPark in Sedgfield, (perhaps readers in Sedgefield could clarify...), but given the £50m price tag, suspect this also is being spent on construction etc..

So yes it would seem that much has been spent on 'pencils' by architects et al. with graphene 'researchers' only being able to buy 'pencils' when the additional £40m "collaboration and investment fund" is established...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "but no one seems quite sure where such a sizeable amount is being spent."

So yes it would seem that much has been spent on 'pencils' by architects et al.

This is the curse of government funding: When government commit money, they want it spent. They have no concept of getting value from it, or spending wisely. Look at Hinkley Point C, HS2, foreign aid. The point of spending public money is purely the act of spending, and being seen to do so.

If we posit that a fully funded academic (plus facilities, materials, support functions) costs £100k per year, then £120m would have paid for 1,200 man years of full time research if they'd used existing facilities. By p****ing the money up the wall on shiney new buildings, the amount actually spent on research is what might we guess, 1/8th of that?

But graphene isn't being treated any differently to other areas. Look at the "investment" in the new Francis Crick building. £700m sprayed up the wall on a fancy building in one of the most expensive property locations on Planet Earth, where most academic and research staff won't be able to afford to live locally. Imagine what £700m would have done if that had been spent on real science and real scientists, rather than real bricks and real navvies.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: "but no one seems quite sure where such a sizeable amount is being spent."

"Maybe they're spending it all on pencils ?"

...and Sellotape :-)

[2460 Something]

Takes time

Trials and experiments take time (and money) as with all things you need to have someone willing to play around with it, if they still cannot replicate identical properties between batches with reasonable percentage of success then there is still a long way to go, indeed it may take another 13 years before they come up with a serious amount of workable use cases for it. I like the sound of the 2 listed in the article though, protecting aircraft from lightning damage and cleaning industrial pollutants from water, rather than contaminating yet another ecosystem are always a win win scenario.

[alain williams]

Only £120 million & a few years ???

and the muppets expect a huge return! They don't have a clue as to how real new science and innovation works. It is not like a bank/stock-market where you give them some money and they rip others off to give you a return; for a start £120 million would not be enough to get bankers interested.

We are looking at something completely new.

Some organisations will be taking paths that lead somewhere useful, others down blind alleys. The only way to tell the difference is to walk the paths.

With innovation: there is no timetable and no guarantee of anything!

[Mage]

Re: Only £120 million & a few years ???

Also £120M is peanuts in the time frame.

[lglethal]

Eh? What?

"With a 22 per cent efficiency, these PV devices have equalled the current world record"

The current record is 46% from the Frauenhofer Institute. Hell getting over 30% isnt that difficult using GaAs cells, and such cells are commerically available.

In what context is a 22% efficient cell world record breaking?

[EnviableOne]

Re: Eh? What?

when its a single junction cell

Traditional single-junction cells have a maximum theoretical efficiency of 33.16%

the Frauenhofer cell was using multi-junction concentrator solar cells

if you put the graphine cells in this combination PV efficiency would be more than 46%

[Ralph the Wonder Llama]

So what they're saying is...

...it all sounds a bit thin?

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA :|

[Anonymous Coward]

Manufacturing

I saw a documentary about graphene where they just used some cellotape stuck to a bit of carbon to make graphene so shurely it cant be that hard? £120m buys a lot of cellotape.

[Moosh]

Shouldn't they be throwing more money at this thing?

£120 million, really, is nothing.

If they want a return on investment, they need to put more into it.

I mean Sony, a private business, spent $3.2 Billion just developing the Playstation 3, and the government is expecting rapid progress and return on a new, "2 dimensional" material with only £120 million?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Shouldn't they be throwing more money at this thing?

It's not the job of governments to spend untold billions on commercialising research. That's what companies are for.

Governments should concentrate on investing on the blue sky stuff that companies shy away from.

[Moosh]

Re: Shouldn't they be throwing more money at this thing?

I understand this, but the government has in this instance started throwing what it seems to think is money at the situation and even interfered with the patent process.

They're currently half-assing it. They should do either or, not what they're currently doing. They're only hurting both themselves and the development of graphene.

[BinkyTheMagicPaperclip]

Re: Shouldn't they be throwing more money at this thing?

*currently* half assing it? Their whole plan is quite obviously to continue to half ass it, throwing money at specific industries post Brexit in the forlorn hope to shore up a failing UK with the bits that can actually make money.

[wiggers]

Re: Shouldn't they be throwing more money at this thing?

Especially as it isn't 'Government money', it's taxpayer's money!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Shouldn't they be throwing more money at this thing?

Do you think Adolf May and her gang understand what Blue Sky is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Graphene = Emperor's new clothes

It's discovery should never have justified winning a Nobel much less have received £120 million and counting of public money.

[lglethal]

Re: Graphene = Emperor's new clothes

I think your wrong there. The Science behind Graphene is pretty amazing. A truly 2D molecule that can be made into an actual single sheet of material. That's an incredible achievement to build.

However, all of the sh%te that gets claimed about Graphene solving this and being the new wonder that will revolutionise that, is a load of bollocks. But the Science itself is top class and has opened up a whole new field of study that previously wasnt even being explored theoretically.

So by all means, pour scorn on those buzzing about it being a wonder material and asking it to save the world, but leave the devlopers alone. They got a Nobel prize for creating groundbreaking science and they deserved it for sure.

[Baldy50]

Re: Graphene = Emperor's new clothes

Can't find the one where they can make it cheaper and in bigger pieces but...

http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-simulate-a-new-1d-material-that-could-be-even-weirder-than-graphene

[John 98]

historical perspective?

Generally it takes 30 - 40 years for scientific discovery to become commercial product. Look at gas lighting, electricity (Faraday, Maxwell to Tesla - 3 phase supply - and Edison - light bulb). Semi conductors etc. etc. So the government may be right but we need to persevere for another 10 -15 years. Meantime we are probably building up an expert community both on graphene and other 2d materials.

Sceptics should note UK has a long history of giving up on these things at the wrong moment - APT on the railways is now in service round the world (including here) courtesy of the Italians who got the technology off us for almost nothing.

[John 98]

Generally it takes 30 - 40 years for scientific discovery to become commercial product. Look at gas lighting, electricity (Faraday, Maxwell to Tesla - 3 phase supply - and Edison - light bulb). Semi conductors etc. etc. So the government may be right but we need to persevere for another 10 -15 years. Meantime we are probably building up an expert community both on graphene and other 2d materials.

Sceptics should note UK has a long history of giving up on these things at the wrong moment - APT on the railways is now in service round the world (including here) courtesy of the Italians who got the technology off us for almost nothing.

[Lars]

About the APT

About the APT.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Passenger_Train

Judging from some of this, is history repeating itself.

"APT became the focus of a storm of negative press reporting, with every failure extensively reported on and continued claims that the entire project was a white elephant." ................... the press dubbed it the "Accident Prone Train"

"The introduction of the Squadron fleet designated APT-S did not occur as had been originally envisaged. The APT project succumbed to an insufficient political will in the United Kingdom to persist in solving the teething difficulties experienced with the many immature technologies necessary for a ground breaking project of this nature. The decision not to proceed was made against a backdrop of negative public perceptions shaped by media coverage of the time.[31][32] The APT is acknowledged as a milestone in the development of the current generation of tilting high speed trains.[citation needed] 25 years later on an upgraded infrastructure the Class 390 Pendolinos now match the APT's scheduled timings. The London to Glasgow route by APT (1980/81 timetable) was 4hrs 10min, the same time as the fastest Pendolino timing (December 2008 timetable). In 2006, on a one off non-stop run for charity, a Pendolino completed the Glasgow to London journey in 3hrs 55min, whereas the APT completed the opposite London to Glasgow journey in 3hrs 52min in 1984".

As for the Italians:

In 1982 Fiat Ferroviaria purchased BR's active tilting patents for development of their own tilting train concepts. They had previously developed the locally designed ETR 401 using the Talgo-like pendulum arrangement and tested it in the 1980s. For its second-generation machines, the ETR 450, the company used BR's active tilt. These entered service between Rome and Milan in 1988. This led to a series of newer designs, known collectively as the Pendolino.[24][c] Italian Pendolino systems incorporating original APT technology have since been sold internationally, including, ironically, the British Class 390 Pendolino introduced on the WCML from late 2003 onwards

[Dan 55]

[It could be in] electronics that we don't make here, but own the IP here...

Yeah. Who did ARM get bought by again?

[imanidiot]

That's 120 million down the tubes then

Seems like thats 120 million spent on all manner of startups that then get sold on the cheap to some other company. We might actually be getting somewhere if University spin-offs were prohibited from selling themselves to the highest bidder for 10 years and more co-operation was allowed/ensured/forced. This whole "buy any startup before the competition does" is a surefire way to fragment and distribute all knowledge and patents so far and wide no-one will ever get things done.

It's been said before: "Invent a way to make graphene reliably and you'll make someone else filthy rich". Probably while getting sued into oblivion yourself.

[Hairy Spod]

wire replacement

figure out how to make it into light weight low value coppper wire replacement, sit back and watch the world become a better place (and more trains run on time)

[Philip Mather]

2D

Graphene is not really 2D, it's 0.00000034 mm thick.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Re: 2D

Have an upvote. Edwin Abbott salutes you.

[Calleb III]

Well duh

I doubt that much of the £120m went to something other than office/lab space cost and admin. No wonder there wasn't much of a progress.

[Stevie]

Bah!

Once a feasible method for leeching the persickertine from the reaction and chelating it, the manufacturing should settle down to the point that every sheet of graphene does what it says on the box the same way and with the same number of in-pocket fires.

[John Smith 19]

Meanwhile in the US they've demoed direct conversion of CO2 to nanofibers and tubes.

The American Chemical Society here

and for the less technically minded the BBC reports here

Not only is this process radically simpler it can also used CO2 from carbon burning power stations.

Possibly the ultimate Carbon Capture technology.

I wonder how many UK projects spotted this pathway and if so were they funded?

Meanwhile it took 3 years to get the £60m George Osborne promised Reaction Engines, during which time the conditions were changed from "We give you the money and you can find a partner" to "We give you the money if you can find a partner."

Which pretty much forced them to accept BAe to buy into the company.

funny how that works, is it not?

[TheSirFin]

Here is one very nice usage:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v540/n7633/full/540319a.html

As feature in BBC Inside Science Podcast on November.

Also Italian firm Vittorio spending a lot on graphene in tyre manufacturing.

Jury still out on that thou.

[0laf]

Politics

Unsurprisingly an investment to get good headlines doesn't produce a result within one parliamentary cycle so the politicians want to drop it as fast as possible before it makes a negative headline.

The usual British story, we'll invest just enough time and money to nearly makes something work then run away just as it starts to pay off then moan for the next 50yr about Johnny Foreigner stealing out work.

If you want to invest in blue sky research like this you have to be prepared to take the risk. Sometimes it will pay off massively, many times it won't.

[John Smith 19]

Given the size of the UK budget maybe the DARPA approach would be better.

Historically HMG has put a shed load of cash in a very small number of areas like nuclear power and forcing mergers to create "national champions" like ICL (now part of Fujitsu) and BAe (ElReg Ad Nauseum) .

DARPA's mission is fairly small (10s of $m) amounts of money over fairly short (3-5year) timescales in very high risk / very high reward projects.

In IT that gave connected speech recognition in 1970 (Earsay, as well as the "blackboard" AI architecture paradigm), the internet protocols and an AI package to pack objects into cargo ships that during the Afghan war saved the US more money that the cost of all previous DARPA AI projects to that date (and has since save the USG a shed load more).

So maybe set a simply articulated goal, hire some very focused project managers and see what happens.....

[EnviableOne]

Re: Given the size of the UK budget maybe the DARPA approach would be better.

Tried that, they were spun out as a private company QuinetiQ

Part of Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA), privatised in June 2001, sites at Farnborough, Hampshire, MoD Boscombe Down, Wiltshire, and Malvern, Worcestershire, all former DERA sites.

[Anonymous Coward]

The next massive tech company?

"Neill Ricketts, chief executive of Versarien, earlier hinted that his firm was happy to mop up graphene-related assets in the UK for bargain prices."

If Graphene really does take off, Versarien could become a name familiar to us all in the future...

[razorfishsl]

120Mil is NOTHING when developing a new technology potentially worth Billions......

Really good R&D spends upto 25% of a companies profit, or the UK could continue to piss 16 billion down the drain by supporting the EU Greek bail out....