British local weather know-how agency Levidian has launched its second-generation LOOP know-how, which is able to unlock industrial ranges of manufacturing of high-quality graphene for the primary time.
Levidian’s LOOP system supplies heavy emitters and hard-to-abate industries resembling landfill and aluminium producers with a path to each decarbonise their processes and open up new income streams from the graphene and hydrogen that’s produced.
This unlocks decarbonisation tasks that may not in any other case occur on account of price.
On the coronary heart of LOOP is a patented nozzle the place microwave power is utilized to crack methane into its element components, creating clear hydrogen and capturing carbon within the type of excessive purity graphene.
A single nozzle shall be able to producing round 15 tonnes of graphene a yr – sufficient to rework the efficiency of hundreds of electrical automobiles with graphene-enhanced batteries and tyres in order that vehicles can go additional for longer with much less affect on the atmosphere.
The corporate is focusing on annual manufacturing of over 50,000 tonnes of graphene by 2030 from a community of LOOP units that can make Levidian one of many largest producers of graphene on the planet*, whereas driving down the emission of round three million tonnes of carbon dioxide equal a yr.
John Hartley, CEO of Levidian mentioned, “We imagine that graphene goes to play a central function in serving to the world’s most carbon intensive companies to decarbonise, fixing the enterprise case on decarbonisation tasks due to its quick return on funding, and delivering efficiency enhancements on nearly each product it touches.
“With this newest know-how launch, we’re setting graphene on a pathway to the mainstream, placing all of the outdated problems with high quality and scale apart to ship unparalleled ranges of graphene manufacturing that’s much less carbon intensive, extra reasonably priced and a better high quality than the rest available on the market at this time.”
Levidian already has 10 LOOPs deployed or beneath building globally together with a pioneering biogas to hydrogen pilot at United Utilities’ Manchester Bioresources Centre, which is supported by the Division for Power Safety and Web Zero’s Hydrogen BECCS Innovation Programme.
In contrast to different graphene manufacturing methods, which generally begin with environmentally dangerous mining for graphite, Levidian cracks methane into hydrogen and carbon utilizing a patented plasma course of.
The low temperature, low stress LOOP course of is very environment friendly, requires neither catalyst nor water, and produces no further carbon dioxide.
The carbon is captured within the type of high-quality graphene which may enhance the standard of merchandise as wide-ranging as thermoplastics, batteries and photo voltaic panels.
The corporate additionally has a devoted workforce of scientists who can tailor and functionalise the fabric to assist clients combine graphene into their present processes and merchandise to drive important enhancements in efficiency and carbon footprint.
Chief know-how officer Alistair Donaldson mentioned, “We’re unlocking a future for graphene that has been 20 years within the making. Over the past yr, our workforce has been relentlessly targeted on driving ahead the design of the nozzle, delivering a 20x uplift in gasoline processing and graphene manufacturing, and discovering alternatives to scale our know-how alongside rising buyer demand.
“However we all know it’s not sufficient to only make graphene. We‘re opening up this supermaterial as a viable answer to industrial decarbonisation, addressing the issues of main international industries who’ve been delay previously, and giving them entry to the world’s main specialists in graphene to assist them safe efficiency enhancements that can set them aside from the competitors.”
