India 1st Graphene research centre will be established in Kerala.

Why in News?

• The India Innovation Centre for Graphene (IICG) will be established in Thrissur, Kerala, as part of a joint venture between Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology (Pune), Digital University Kerala (DUK), Tata Steel Limited and other industries.
• A first-of-its-kind centre for studying graphene and developing its newer applications as suitable for industries has recently been approved by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

Why Graphene Research?

• The newest centre aims at promoting and performing R&D on graphene as per the industry requirements.
• Being a good conductor of electricity and highly flexible, this two-dimensional form of crystalline carbon has enormous number of applications ranging from electronic wearable devices, biomedical devices, sensors, fuel cells, semiconductors, field emission displays, nanoelectrodes for inexpensive organic electronic devices such as organic photovoltaics (OPVs), liquid-crystal devices (LCDs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), supercapacitors, fuel cells and batteries.
• Nicknamed as wonder material, graphene coatings prevent corrosion in factories and industries, which face annual losses up to worth Rs 50,000 crore, a study on uses of graphene coatings by IIT-Bombay.