ACCORDs Consortium Highlights Contributions at Graphene Week 2025: Advancing Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design and the Future of Graphene Innovation

Vicenza, Italy — September 2025 — The ACCORDs consortium, under the auspices of Horizon Europe (Grant Agreement No. 101092796), took an active role in Graphene Week 2025, held 22–26 September in Vicenza, Italy. Supported by the European Commission, this 20th edition of Europe’s flagship graphene and 2D materials conference gathered over 500 participants to discuss the latest advances in research, innovation, standardisation, and industrialization in the domain of graphene and related materials.

At the heart of ACCORDs’ participation were contributions in both oral and poster formats, and particularly strong engagement in the “Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD)” session held on 23 September. Below we highlight the contributions of two key consortium members, BAM & University of Torino, and reflect on the broader messages exchanged during the conference and their relevance to ACCORDs’ mission.

Key contributions by ACCORDs members in SSbD session

The SSbD explored routes to scale up 2D materials production under safety and sustainability constraints, with a view to linking innovation, regulation, and industrial uptake.

• Francesco Pellegrino with the oral presentation “Design of Experiment and Chemometric Approach for Bringing Order to the Synthesis of Graphene Oxide with the Tour’s Method”, presented a data-driven approach to graphene oxide (GO) synthesis using Design of Experiments (DoE) and chemometric analysis. This methodology replaces traditional trial-and-error processes, identifying the key parameters that affect GO quality and yield. The approach enables more consistent, efficient, and sustainable production of high-quality GO, supporting the Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) principles in advanced materials manufacturing.
• Dan Hodoroaba contributed with the talk “Standardized Chemical Composition Analysis of Graphene Oxide Flakes with SEM/EDS and XPS Works Reliably”. He presented an evaluation of SEM/EDS as a reliable method for quantifying the oxygen-to-carbon (O/C) ratio in graphene oxide materials. By comparing SEM/EDS results with established XPS data, the study demonstrated the robustness and potential of this technique for consistent chemical characterization of graphene-related 2D materials, contributing to standardization efforts within the Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) framework. First interaction with the ISO Technical Committee ISO/TC 229 Nanotechnologies to include this new ACCORDs methodology into the ISO/TC 229 working program has been recently achieved by Dan. He also was present with the poster developed by Paul Mrkwitschka titled «Wire-print as a novel sample preparation approach for accurate morphological characterisation of constituent particles of Graphene-related 2D-materials”, where the performance of a new method for the homogeneous deposition of particles from a liquid suspension on a substrate for accurate imaging is successfully demonstrated on the ACCORDs materials. A corresponding extended paper to this innovation is prepared to be submitted for publication.
• Loay Madbouly presented a poster titled «Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy of commercial Functionalised Graphene”, where a systematic characterisation study along the production chain of commercial graphene products (inks of the ACCORDs partner Haydale company) has been carried out.

In sum, the ACCORDs contributions reinforced the notion that advanced imaging, and smart combination of characterisation techniques, can play a pivotal role in bridging innovation and regulatory readiness in the graphene sector.

Broader messages and sector challenges discussed at Graphene Week

Beyond the specific presentations, several recurring themes and pressing challenges emerged from Graphene Week 2025 that align closely with ACCORDs’ strategic vision:

1. Consolidation phase of the graphene sector. Several industry players are present on the market but still struggle to turn graphene from a novelty into reproducible, scalable product lines. In this phase, trust in measurement, consistency, and comparability is essential to fostering uptake. New industrial partners have to phase the complexity of adapting to new standards and measurement procedures, together with new knowledge related to whole life cycle of these advanced materials.
2. Gaps in certification, standards, and regulatory alignment. A frequent refrain was the need for improvement related to broadly accepted standards, normative reference materials, and agreed protocols for graphene-based materials. Such gaps impede more industrial adoption of graphene-based products because end users (and regulators) lack confidence in reproducibility and safety claims. The alignment of emerging characterization frameworks with regulatory bodies such as the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and their frameworks (e.g. REACH) remains an urgent priority.
3. The indispensable role of R&D, innovation, and open data. To surmount these obstacles, sustained investment in research and development is critical. Projects like ACCORDs, with its rich data generation, novel imaging-driven approaches, and ambition to produce reference documents and tools, are central to enabling progress. The availability of open, FAIR, well-annotated data is key to enabling reproducibility, cross-project interoperability, and broader uptake by stakeholders across academia, regulation, and industry.
4. Need for novel protocols, alignment with regulatory frameworks, and stakeholder tools. The community repeatedly underscored the need for new test protocols, validated methodology, and alignment with regulatory infrastructures (such as ECHA/REACH). The goal is to ensure that novel graphene-based materials can advance from laboratory demonstrators to standardized, safe, marketable products. Collaborative consortia, networked infrastructures, and strategic alignment across projects and regulators are vital to that journey.

Graphene Week 2025 served as a crucible for these conversations, enabling cross-pollination among projects, industry, standardization initiatives, and regulatory actors.

How ACCORDs is contributing and next steps

Within ACCORDs, a major thrust is the systematic generation of high-quality imaging and correlated characterization data on graphene-family materials, with well-defined and documented metadata and protocols designed for reuse, comparability, and regulatory relevance. The consortium aims to deliver:

• Reference measurement workflows and imaging pipelines
• Harmonized protocols and interlaboratory benchmarking
• Templates and guide documents to support uptake by industry and regulatory bodies
• Tools and dashboards for stakeholders (material producers, users, regulators,) to explore and interpret data

These outputs directly support acceleration of the graphene sector by lowering technical barriers, enhancing confidence in measurement, and catalyzing the translation from R&D to application.

In the coming months, ACCORDs partners plan to integrate feedback and lessons learned from Graphene Week into its deliverables, pursue further engagement with Graphene Flagship, regulatory initiatives, and (pre-)standardization bodies, and present results at upcoming international events and workshops.

We invite all stakeholders—researchers, regulatory bodies, industrial actors, and the broader graphene community—to follow ACCORDs’ progress via www.accordsproject.com

If you want to know more about our strategic networks, take a look at video section here: https://accordsproject.com/resources/videos/?playlist=2659689&video=40d5427