The 20th edition of the Graphene Week, held in rainy Vicenza, Italy, from 22 to 26 September 2025, and hosted by the Graphene Flagship, provided a vibrant stage for GRAPHERGIA to share its vision, engage new collaborators, and strengthen ties within the graphene community.
Over five days of talks, workshops, posters, networking, and podcasts, the GRAPHERGIA innovators had multiple opportunities to present their ongoing research and deepen the project’s footprint in the European graphene‑energy landscape.
Graphene Research Made Social: The Poster Sessions
The conference opened with plenary sessions and a mix of talks and poster sessions, wrapping up the first day at the Welcome Reception hosted in the stunning Olympic Theatre of Vicenza. On Monday 22 and Tuesday 23, Magda Spella, Researcher and Project Manager at Foundation For Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH), represented GRAPHERGIA in the Graphene Flagship project’s Managers Meeting and in the Graphene Flagship Annual Meeting. Each project presented their progress and latest research results, highlighting the importance of the community as key driver of innovation in graphene and 2D materials.
Starting on the evening of 22 September, GRAPHERGIA’s presence in the posters area became visible. Natalia Kantouni, PhD Student at FORTH, showcased a poster on a scalable laser‑assisted in situ method to grow conductive graphene films onto textiles and fabrics, bridging lab methods toward industrial roll‑to‑roll processes. “Using both pulsed Nd:YAG (1064 nm) and continuous-wave CO2 (10.6 µm) lasers, graphene oxide coatings were reduced on diverse substrates, including polyester, polyamide, and carbon-fiber prepregs. Optimized processing yielded sheet resistance values as low as 8–10 Ω sq-1, among the lowest reported for laser-scribed graphene on fabrics. Crucially, the method was upscaled to an industrial roll-to-roll (R2R) platform, producing meter-scale, uniform graphene-coated textiles, thus bridging laboratory research with industrial manufacturing feasibility”, explained Natalia.
Download Natalia’s poster on GRAPHERGIA’s Zenodo.
Dorela Hoxa, Materials and Processes Engineer at Pleione Energy, one of the GRAPHERGIA partners, joined Natalia in the poster session of Monday, but to disseminate her research related to projects connected to GRAPHERGIA: INERRANT Batteries, integrating novel materials with scalable processes for safer and recyclable Li-ion batteries, and EMPHASIS-Supercaps, developing breakthrough technology for sustainable energy storage.
The next evening, on 23 September, Spyros Tsiotos, Materials and Processes Engineer at Adamant Composites, represented GRAPHERGIA by presenting his poster “Reduced Graphene Oxide & CFRPs – Maximized Properties. An investigative overview”, focusing on Adamant‘s work refining the use of laser irradiation to create more cohesive, high‑quality graphene–CFRP interfaces.
These poster sessions provided fertile ground for informal conversations and spontaneous exchanges between researchers, students and industry participants, who continued their discussions in a more relaxed atmosphere over good Italian food and drinks at the end of the day.
Download Spyros’ poster on GRAPHERGIA’s Zenodo.
Life Cycle Assessment and Safe and Sustainable-by-Design of Graphene and 2D Materials: The GRAPHERGIA Workshops
On 24 September, the “GIANCE Workshop Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)”, focused on sustainability and environmental assessment of graphene applications, gave GRAPHERGIA the opportunity to discuss life‑cycle analysis and sustainability metrics. Matteo Maccanti, Environmental Researcher and LCA Analyst at Next Technology Tecnotessile (NTT), contributed to the workshop’s core debate, moderated by Ana Claudia Nioac de Salles, from Fraunhofer ICT, and joined by other key voices in the field: Johan Ek Weis (Chalmers Industriteknik, SIO Grafen), Susanna Andreasi Bassi (JRC European Platform on LCA), and Antonio Valente (ecoinvent).
The following day, September 25, GRAPHERGIA and SAFARI co-organized the workshop “Safe and Sustainable-by-Design 2D Materials for Energy, Electronics, and Biotechnology”. The session, chaired by Diana Marcano (Poznań Institute of Technology), with Nadia Bali, Postdoctoral Researcher at ICEHT/FORTH, and Matteo Maccanti (NTT) as the GRAPHERGIA speakers, emphasized safe, scalable, and environmentally conscious approaches to next‑generation 2D materials.
Nadia and Matteo were joined by Kyle Matthews, the workshop’s guest speaker, Co-Founder and CTO at MXene Inc., a spin-off from Drexel University, built on a foundation of cutting-edge research and innovation to commercialize and scale MXene technology in the United States. João Laranjeira, Project Manager and Researcher at ISQ, also spoke about the safe and sustainable-by-design approach for 2D materials in the SAFARI project.
Mona Marill, Project Manager at AUSTRALO, our Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation leader, highlighted the positive impact of these workshops on the project:
“This year, the Graphene Week offered a great opportunity for our project to present its research in workshops with two projects, GIANCE and SAFARI. It was amazing to see all the graphene enthusiasts come together during this week to present their work. We engaged with stakeholders who are new to GRAPHERGIA’s ambitions, and activities related to future energy solutions powered by graphene. I hope that these exchanges turn into new collaborations within the Graphene Flagship ecosystem, and beyond!”
The Graphene Flagship Hall: A Space for Collaboration
The Graphene Flagship Hall was the center of the Graphene Week, where projects could share an exhibition space with information booths and networking opportunities. GRAPHERGIA joined other EU projects, including ARMS, 2DSPIN-TECH, 2D ENGINE, 2D-PRINTABLE, SAFARI, GIANCE, MUNASET, 2D-BioPAD, GATEPOST, Next-2Digits, and 2DNeuralVision, to strengthen the sense of common purpose among 2D and graphene consortia.
GRAPHERGIA also leveraged the setting to record two podcast episodes. One focused on sustainability and future energy, while the other focused on biosensors and biomedicine, featuring some of its own scientists and innovators. These recordings not only give voice to the human stories behind the research but also extend the project’s visibility beyond Vicenza -stay tuned, because we will launch the GRAPHERGIA Podcast Series soon!
As Dorela Hexa put it:
“Graphene Week 2025 was a great opportunity to present our work during the poster session, and to connect in person with partners from Adamant, FORTH, NTT, and AUSTRALO. We also had the chance to participate in a joint podcast with our sister project ARMS, and we gathered useful insights from the conference sessions and discussions around the poster presentations.”
As the week came to a close, GRAPHERGIA built stronger links within the Graphene Flagship ecosystem, especially with projects such as GIANCE, SAFARI, and ARMS. “Once again, the Graphene Week provided its value, since we strengthened the bonds between the Graphene Flagship projects, and left with new ideas and meaningful connections. Congratulations to the organizers and speakers!”, highlighted Magda Spella.
Sustainability was also a central topic. The perspectives of key researchers and scientists reinforced the notion that the evaluation of graphene’s future must consider not just technical performance, but environmental, social and economic dimensions. In words of Matteo Maccanti:
“I feel proud and happy for participating in this stimulating conference, which lays an excellent and solid foundation for the future of sustainability assessments, not only from a technical standpoint, but also from environmental, social, and economic perspectives, for such an important material as graphene.”
Spyros Tsiotos also enjoyed attending the event, noting that “the best part of Graphene Week 2025 was realizing that ideas and friendships grow fastest when shared with people who are just as curious as you are.”
That sentiment summarizes what GRAPHERGIA took away: not only technical insights and contacts, but renewed energy from shared curiosity and collaboration. In the months ahead, GRAPHERGIA will be working to convert the momentum and connections from Vicenza into concrete collaborative proposals, shared experiments, and wider stakeholder engagement.
See you next year in Porto for the Graphene Week 2026!