Why Graphene Frontiers is spending $3M to open an R&D facility in Albany

Graphene Frontiers plans to open a satellite office inside SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s Albany NanoTech Complex next year.

It’ll allow the graphene manufacturer to ramp up production and be close to the consumer electronics companies who also call the complex home. (While Graphene Frontiers isn’t working with consumer electronics companies right now, it’s a market opportunity they’re interested in, according to a spokesman.)

The company, which spun out of research being done at Penn, will spend $3 million over the next three-to-five years on tools, equipment and hiring up to 27 employees who will work out of the Albany office, according to a release.

The State of New York and SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering will invest $2 million in the partnership, though a spokesman said it’s not clear yet what that money will go toward.

The Albany NanoTech Complex is the “best place in the world for this work,” said Graphene Frontiers CEO Mike Patterson through a spokesman. That’s because more than 3,100 scientists, researchers, engineers, students and faculty work there, including those from consumer electronics companies like IBM, Intel, Samsung and Toshiba. Graphene Frontiers is one of 300 businesses that have signed on to use the complex.

While Graphene Frontiers still uses Penn’s nanotech center, the Albany Nanotech Complex has more powerful equipment that will allow the company to scale up production.

At the complex, Graphene Frontiers will manufacture graphene — a super-strong carbon material — and ship it back to Philadelphia where it will be used to create biosensors.