Purdue spin-out goes big

BlueVine Graphene Industries, a technology spin-out of Purdue University, is getting ready to scale up the production of graphene to a commercial quantity as well as develop biosensors and supercapacitors.

Spun out only during the 2014 fiscal year, the company is commercialising patented technology, called Folium, that allows the creation of graphene electrodes on a commercial scale, which can then be customised to unique customer requests. Folium was developed by Timothy Fisher, professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue and now also chief technology officer at BlueVine.

The spin-out has been developing and testing two distinct applications for Folium, namely biosensors and supercapacitors. The company hopes that by the second-generation of its biosensors it will be able to build non-invasive tests to measure glucose levels through saliva, tears or urine. As for supercapacitors, BlueVine is looking at creating batteries which charge in a fraction of the time it takes current lithium-ion batteries. The next-generation batteries would have the added benefit of also being impervious to an energy fade.

The company sees consumer, military and industrial applications for its technology.

Timothy Fisher, CTO at BlueVine, said: “We are moving up to roll-to-roll, large-scale manufacturing capabilities. These roll-to-roll systems allow us to increase output by a thousand-fold over the original research-scale processes. These state-of-the-art systems allow us to leverage the game-changing properties of graphene and, in particular, our graphene petal technology, called Folium, at production scales that provide tremendous pricing advantages.”