Written question asked by Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative) on Friday, 4 September 2026, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 8 September 2026. It was answered by Luke Pollard (Labour) on Monday, 14 September 2026 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Defence: Graphene

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what progress has he made in developing a graphene sensing surface configurable to target a) specific molecules, b) chemical agents or c) biological markers.

Answer: The development of sensing surfaces that can be configured to target specific molecules, chemical agents, or biological markers is an important contributor to the building of sensing capabilities for public and force health protection, or human performance monitoring. The Ministry of Defence continuously evaluates new materials and technologies internally, with academia and industry partners. This includes the pursuit of sensing options relevant to the mentioned targets, with progress seen in examples such as electrochemical based sensing utilising a variety of candidate substrates. However, there are not currently any Science & Technology programmes within the department to develop sensing surfaces that utilise graphene specifically.

Secondary information