British local weather expertise agency Levidian has launched its second-generation LOOP expertise, which is able to unlock industrial ranges of manufacturing of high-quality graphene for the primary time.
Levidian’s LOOP system offers heavy emitters and hard-to-abate industries corresponding to 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 initiatives that may not in any other case occur on account of value.
On the coronary heart of LOOP is a patented nozzle the place microwave vitality is utilized to crack methane into its element elements, creating clear hydrogen and capturing carbon within the type of excessive purity graphene.
A single nozzle will probably be able to producing round 15 tonnes of graphene a yr – sufficient to remodel the efficiency of 1000’s of electrical automobiles with graphene-enhanced batteries and tyres in order that automobiles can go additional for longer with much less impression on the setting.
The corporate is concentrating on annual manufacturing of over 50,000 tonnes of graphene by 2030 from a community of LOOP units that may 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 consider 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 initiatives due to its brief return on funding, and delivering efficiency enhancements on nearly each product it touches.
“With this newest expertise launch, we’re setting graphene on a pathway to the mainstream, placing all of the previous problems with high quality and scale apart to ship unparalleled ranges of graphene manufacturing that’s much less carbon intensive, extra inexpensive and a better high quality than anything in the marketplace in the present day.”
Levidian already has 10 LOOPs deployed or underneath building globally together with a pioneering biogas to hydrogen pilot at United Utilities’ Manchester Bioresources Centre, which is supported by the Division for Vitality Safety and Internet Zero’s Hydrogen BECCS Innovation Programme.
In contrast to different graphene manufacturing strategies, 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 might 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 current processes and merchandise to drive crucial enhancements in efficiency and carbon footprint.
Chief expertise 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 centered on driving ahead the design of the nozzle, delivering a 20x uplift in fuel processing and graphene manufacturing, and discovering alternatives to scale our expertise 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 world industries who’ve been delay up to now, and giving them entry to the world’s main consultants in graphene to assist them safe efficiency enhancements that may set them other than the competitors.”
