£2.5bn funding available to explore commercial use of graphene

Innovate UK, the government's innovation agency, together with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) are seeking to stimulate exploitation of the high-performance material graphene by investing £2.5 million in feasibility studies

Innovate UK and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) are investing up to £2.5 million in technical feasibility studies to target the applications of graphene with the greatest commercial potential.
 
The aim of this competition is to stimulate the exploitation of this high-performance material, as well as related carbon-based 2D materials that have emerged from the research base. These studies should evaluate the feasibility and potential of the use of graphene in a specific application, with relevant data to support its performance against current market specifications.
 
Projects must be led by a business and be collaborative, involving a partner with a future end-use route to market.
 
Small businesses could receive up to 70% of their eligible project costs, medium-sized businesses 60% and large businesses 50%.
 
We expect projects to last 6 to 12 months and to range in size from total costs of £100,000 to £250,000.
 
This competition opens on 21 September 2015 and the deadline for applications is at noon on 4 November 2015. A briefing event for potential applicants will be held in London on 23 September 2015. There will be consortium-building workshops around the country in September and October. All events will be announced on the Graphene Special Interest Group website on _connect.

Scope  

This competition aims to support technical feasibility studies evaluating the potential of graphene, developed in the science base, to deliver industry-standard performance.
 
Projects should evaluate whether novel or radical improvements in operational performance are feasible using graphene or related carbon-based 2D materials in the targeted application. Other non- carbon 2D materials may only be used in conjunction with graphene or related carbon-based 2D materials.
 
Projects should exploit the characteristics of graphene to deliver entirely new benefits, additional benefits or improvements in the existing benefits of the end application. The project must address two or more benefits, for which the use of graphene improves upon the current industry technology. These benefits can include, but are not limited to:

• structural
• electrical
• optical
• thermal
• selective permeability
• ease/speed of manufacture
• ease of use
• durability
• flexibility

Out of scope

This competition is focused on the applications of graphene and the potential improvement over current non-graphene materials. Therefore, projects focused solely on the manufacturing of graphene or the process optimisation for manufacturing of graphene are out of scope. However, if a proposed application of graphene requires research into making a specific form of the material, or scaling up a manufacturing process, then this is acceptable as part of the project. Therefore, process development can be carried out but only within the context of the performance requirements of a specific graphene application.

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Taxonomy

• Commercialization of Research
• Renewable Materials
• Process Engineering & Project Management
• Process Manufacturing
• Graphene