Computational studies reveal graphene's role in water desalination by making pores of appropriate size to separate water, sodium and chloride ions.

http://www.nanowerk.com/news2/newsid=27134.php

Researchers at MIT have used CVD graphene to selectively filter molecules. This has been attributed to the intrinsic defects in CVD graphene. Graphene takes one more leap for energy and water solutions.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn303869m

Gapless Graphene modulates THz waves

For electronics industry, zero band gap of graphene has been a curse regardless of astonishing carrier mobility and optical transparency. However, gapless graphene seems to be a boon for optical transmission in THz range. This is all because of broadband absorption by graphene. 

Researchers at University of Notre Dame have demostrated an unseen capability of graphene as THz wave modulator.

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n4/abs/ncomms1787.html

A new study has revealed the formation of mm sized graphene crystals by chemical vapor deposition. The study demonstrates the capability of CVD process for graphene growth. 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adfm.201201577/full

Defect engineering of Graphene

Controlling the defects in graphene is a very challenging task which when circumvented can provide defected graphene with more number of applications. Researchers at University of Oxford have used electron beam to create defects in graphene in a controlled manner. This can pave the way for graphene research based on atomic defects.

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n10/full/ncomms2141.html

Graphene has shown great promise in upcoming plasmonic future where photons can be electrically controlled. However, this requires designing appropriate photonic materials where graphene can be used an active material. 
In a recent report in Nature Materials, it is indeed demonstrated that graphene, in conjunction with the metamaterial, can modulate both the amplitude and phase of the transmitted waves.

http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v11/n11/full/nmat3433.html?WT.ec_id=NMAT-201211

Tunable graphene lens

Graphene is known to exhibit a broad absorption peak at around 4.6 eV. This is attributed to resonant excitonic effects due to electron-hole interaction in the pi and pi star bands. Feeding on this extraordinary property of this single atomic layer, recent theoretical work has demonstrated that graphene layers can act as frequency tunable subwavelength imaging device in a proper configuration of a lens.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn303845a

STM studies on a single graphene nanoribbon

Researchers have studied a single graphene nanoribbon molecule to study voltage dependence conductance. This could start the graphene based molecular nanoelectronics.

http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nnano.2012.169.html

Flexible graphene Li ion batteries

Scientists in China have demonstrated the use of graphene in flexible Li ion batteries with enhanced charge and discharge rates. They claim it is light weight too !

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/10/05/1210072109.short

Engineering graphene nanopores for biosensing!

Researchers have used in-situ electron irradiation and heating in a TEM chamber to manipulate the size of graphene nanopores. This enables the shrinkage or widening of a graphene nanopore. The nanopores can be shrunk to the sizes small enough to thread a single DNA strand. This will help in DNA sequencing.
Graphene is a flourishing material which has significant impact on biomedical industry.

http://www.utdallas.edu/news/2012/10/2-19931_Research-Shows-Graphene-Nanopores-Can-Be-Controlle_article-wide.html

Graphene - a component of upcoming photonic materials

Graphene has shown great promise in photonic materials. Now, the researchers use high optical transparency and conductivity to manufacture electrically driven microdisk lasers.

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n10/abs/ncomms2137.html?WT.ec_id=NCOMMS-20121009

Graphene membranes for gas purification

Graphene membranes look promising for chemical and gas purification.
http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nnano.2012.162.html

Scratching CVD growth of graphene- Good papers to read for newcomers in the field

1) First report on large area growth of graphene films on Ni catalysts
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7230/full/nature07719.html

2) Large area growth of graphene on Cu catalysts
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/324/5932/1312.short

3) Large area few layer graphene films directly grown on arbitrary substrates
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl801827v

4) Improved graphene transfer process
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl902623y

5) Wafer scale synthesis and transfer of graphene
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl903272n

Grahene metamaterials for photonic memory

Graphene's role in plasmonic materials is boosted by the current report in Nature. It is demonstrated that gate controlled graphene metamaterials can exhibit photonic memory effects.
http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nmat3433.html

Highly transparent nonvolatile resistive memory devices based on graphene

Transparent electronic memory gets a leap with the utilization of graphene as a transparent electrode  Not only transparency, it gets flexibility also by using flexible substrates.

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n10/full/ncomms2110.html

Graphene tunnel barriers for spin injection

In a recent report, published in nature nanotechnology, graphene has been used a tunnel barrier for low resistance spin injection into silicon. This is attributed to chemical inertness and high conductivity of graphene.

http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nnano.2012.161.html