A manufacturing process that produces long strips of high-quality graphene
Many applications of Graphene are already on the market (ex. lighter and stiffer bicycle frames, bicycle tires, sports equipment, electronic inks and paints etc). However, these are based on lower quality Graphene powders or nanoplatelets (essentially a commodity at this point) which are used as an additive to a starting epoxy or resin material.<p>Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) is the method used to produce the highest quality graphene (usually on Copper). Several companies (Graphenea etc) have scaled up CVD and continue to work towards much lower $ / m^2 targets in the near future.<p>The main challenge in the industry is currently the transfer step. Current methods to transfer Graphene from growth substrate to target substrate are inefficient and not amenable to high volume manufacturing.<p>"Roll to Roll" (what the paper is referring to) aims to solve this - companies like Samsung, LG, and Sony have been exploring Roll to Roll systems for flexible electronics/display applications.<p>After flexible applications, the next step is to enable CMOS compatibility / transfer to Silicon wafers. I'm the co-founder of a company in Austin that is working towards this.