Best of the week — the five most popular stories among @AuManufacturing’s readers

What were the five biggest stories of the week? Here’s what visitors to this site were reading.

5) GMG GETS APPROVALS TO BUILD GRAPHENE BATTERY PLANT AT BRISBANE

Brisbane-based, Toronto-listed Graphene Manufacturing Group announced on Wednesday that it had the regulatory and council approvals needed to begin commercial-scale manufacturing of its novel batteries.

To date the company has been working under R&D-level regulatory approvals to make battery cell prototypes. The announcement is the first about GMG’s batteries since June last year, when GMG provided an update stating it had commissioned equipment for pouch cell production.

“This is another milestone in the maturation of the company,” said CEO Craig Nicol of the approvals.

4) UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ANNOUNCES QUANTUM COMPUTING CHIP FOUNDRY

On Tuesday the University of Sydney announced a $7.4 million investment to expand its quantum technology facilities, to establish the Future Qubit Foundry at the Sydney Nanoscience Hub.

The foundry will be a national-leading facility to invent the technology of tomorrow’s quantum computers, enabling them to operate at scale and be of use to society.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Emma Johnston said: “The Future Qubit Foundry will leverage the University of Sydney’s research leadership in advanced quantum technologies and put us at the forefront of next-generation design of qubits, the heart of quantum computers.”

3) AUSTAL DELIVERS US NAVY’S LARGEST AUTONOMOUS SHIP

Perth shipbuilder Austal has delivered Expeditionary Fast Transport USNS Apalachicola (EPF 13, pictured) to the United States Navy – the largest surface ship in the fleet with autonomous capability.

Building upon the highly automated hull, mechanical and electrical systems already installed on the Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transport ships, designed by Austal Australia, the Austal USA team in partnership with L3Harris and General Dynamics Mission Systems added automated maintenance, health monitoring, and mission readiness.

This provides EPF 13 with the capability to conduct up to 30 days of operation without human intervention.

2) OPAL AUSTRALIAN PAPER MAKES ITS LAST REAM OF REFLEX

Opal Australian Paper has made its last ream of its popular Reflex brand copy paper with the formal announcement of the permanent closure of the company’s Maryvale mill in Victoria., writes Peter Roberts.

Making good on warnings made last month, the company conceded it had not been able to solve the issue of a supply of timber from VicForests to the mill, which would be closed with the likely loss of32 jobs.

Last financial year it produced 116,000 tonnes of copy paper for the domestic market, plus 88,000 tonnes for export.

1) BEGA TO SHUT CANBERRA FACTORY, RELOCATE OPERATIONS TO PENRITH

Bega Group will close its Griffith, Canberra dairy factory and move manufacture to the company’s Penrith, NSW site, citing inefficiencies in logistics due to a lack of dairy farms in the Australian Capital Territory.

The move follows a review by Bega, which said the Griffith plant (formerly known as Capitol Chilled Foods) had been operating below capacity “for some time” and had had to source milk from interstate as “there have not been dairy farms within the ACT for many years”.

Bega said on Wednesday that the 19 workers affected would be offered redundancy packages or redeployed where possible.

Picture: University of Sydney