Morgan Advanced Materials, which is based in Windsor, has signed a joint development agreement with the University of Manchester to develop a new process for manufacturing graphene — the world’s thinnest material and a potent conductor. The agreement will bring together graphene researchers from the university with Morgan’s 150 years of carbon-processing expertise.
The partnership will explore the full potential of the material, which was isolated at the university in 2004. Morgan first began working with the university in early 2010 on a number of Government-funded materials. There are currently about 200 graphene researchers at the university, and a £61 million National Graphene Institute is to open in Manchester next year.
Mike Murray, chief technology officer at Morgan, said the company’s material scientists will be based full time at the university, working to “understand the manufacturing mechanism and properties of graphene, and helping us explore the applications where the technology can be used for optimum benefit.”
Clive Rowland, chief executive of the university’s UM13 innovation company, said: “To explore and fully exploit the properties of graphene, commercial partnerships are vital. I am very pleased with our collaboration with Morgan, which is based around an Intellectual Property project that we have taken to the proof-of-principle stage.
“We have consistently said that joining forces with world-class companies like Morgan and tapping into such engineering and industrial experience will help us realise the full potential of the material and greatly assist us in overcoming the myriad challenges of taking an entirely new material from the laboratory all the way through to the manufacturing stage and ultimately to market adoption.”