The Graphene Pavilion at the Mobile World Congress

The Graphene Flagship returns to the GSMA Mobile World Congress, bringing with it the next generation of mobile technologies. Step into the Graphene Pavilion and enter the fascinating world of graphene and related materials in an exhibition designed to bring these materials to life. Discover how they can be made in large-scale in the Graphene Knowledge Centre and experience cutting-edge new technologies, with interactive demonstrations in Sensors and IoT, Wearables and Health, Datacom and Energy. Organised by the Graphene Flagship, curated by ICFO and supported by the European Commission and the GSMA, the Graphene Pavilion is a glimpse into the future of mobile technologies.

At Mobile World Congress 2017, the Graphene Flagship’s exhibition was considered a ‘not to be missed’ booth. This year, explore further the applications of graphene and related materials in mobile technology at the Graphene Pavilion. Experience cameras that can see the invisible, filters that create safe drinking water, novel batteries, a wide range of flexible electronics, ultrafast data transmission systems, pressure tracking shoes and solar cells with world-class efficiency, all enabled by graphene.

"The Graphene Pavilion at Mobile World Congress is the centrepiece of the Graphene Flagship technology and innovation development. We are proud to showcase how graphene and related materials are progressing along the roadmap to applications, with a focus on consumer electronics. The Flagship partners are open for business and ready to forge new collaborations to bring these materials to the marketplace,” said Professor Andrea Ferrari, Graphene Flagship Science and Technology Officer and Chair of its Management Panel. 

With 25 different demonstrators, prototypes and products on display there is something for everyone at the Graphene Pavilion.

"As we start to see more diversity in the type of prototypes that are being demonstrated, more and more of the technology is edging closer to the markets," said ICREA Professor Frank Koppens from ICFO (The Institute of Photonic Sciences), Barcelona, the Scientific Chair of the Graphene Pavilion.

The Graphene Flagship is one of Europe’s largest research initiatives, aimed at taking graphene and related materials from the realm of academic laboratories to the factory floor. The Graphene Pavilion hosts 25 exhibiting partners from across Europe and is a true testament to the ground-breaking work being undertaken within the Graphene Flagship.

"As the mobile industry strives to maintain its pace of innovation, graphene has much to offer: supporting high-speed 5G services, smart batteries, flexible sensors, integrated photonics and IoT solutions. The interplay between research and industry is instrumental in order to find the right hot spots for innovation. In addition to the Graphene Pavilion exhibition we also offer a ‘Meeting Graphene’ event on Wednesday 28 February capturing the highlights of this year’s Graphene Pavilion,” said Dr Kari Hjelt, Head of Innovation for the Graphene Flagship.

Within the four areas of Data Communications, Sensors and IoT, Wearables and Health, and Energy the Graphene Pavilion offers a truly immersive experience into the world of Graphene Innovation. These areas include:

Data Communications: Experience how graphene-based photodetectors and modulators receive and transmit optical data faster than ever before, leading to ultrafast data streams with extreme bandwidth which are essential for a data-driven future in 5G. Developed within the Graphene Flagship by a collaboration between CNIT (Italy), AMO GmbH (Germany), Ericsson (Sweden) and Nokia (Italy), Nokia Bell Labs (Germany) and Imec (Belgium). The optical 25Gb/s data link can be found at the Graphene Pavilion. At the Ericsson stand in Hall 2 (open to Ericsson customers and by invite only), Ericsson and CNIT will present switching of a 100Gb/s channel in an Ericsson testbed.

Sensors and IoT: A wide-spectrum graphene light camera, developed by ICFO (Spain) which can see details invisible to the human eye. Using sensitive graphene photodetectors, the camera can detect ultraviolet, visible and infrared light enabling this wide-spectrum imaging. This has implications in quality screening for food safety and imaging systems for autonomous cars. Also on display is a newly launched product from Emberion (Finland). Emberion’s single pixel sensing solution with graphene-based photodetectors for visible to short-wave infrared light is ideal for sensitive spectrometry, gas detection and portable material analysis solutions.

Wearables and Health: A flexible graphene-based neural interface that records signals from the speech centres on the surface of the brain is being developed by ICN2 (Spain) in collaboration with the BrainCom project. These implants exhibit low invasiveness and are more suitable for integration than the current state of the art because of graphene’s flexibility and intrinsic electronic properties. Graphene smart shoes which show multifunctional benefits including sensing, cooling and enhanced strength will also be on display. A prototype from the Cambridge Graphene Centre (UK) provides pressure tracking in athletic shoes to boost performance and a commercially available shoe developed by IIT- Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, the IIT start-up BeDimensional s.r.l. and Fadel s.r.l. (Italy) is more comfortable due to enhanced heat transfer properties.

Energy: Graphene supercapacitors and batteries, developed by Thales Research and Technology (France), IIT - Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italy) and the Cambridge Graphene Centre (UK) which can be printed, have high energy density and rapidly charge and discharge will be used in mobile devices and make high power more portable.