British local weather expertise agency Levidian has launched its second-generation LOOP expertise, which can unlock industrial ranges of manufacturing of high-quality graphene for the primary time.
Levidian’s LOOP system gives heavy emitters and hard-to-abate industries similar 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 tasks that may not in any other case occur resulting from value.
On the coronary heart of LOOP is a patented nozzle the place microwave power is utilized to crack methane into its part components, 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 12 months – sufficient to rework the efficiency of 1000’s of electrical automobiles with graphene-enhanced batteries and tyres in order that vehicles can go additional for longer with much less affect on the surroundings.
The corporate is concentrating 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 earth*, whereas driving down the emission of round three million tonnes of carbon dioxide equal a 12 months.
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 tasks because of its quick 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 the next high quality than the rest in the marketplace at the moment.”
Levidian already has 10 LOOPs deployed or beneath development 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 Internet Zero’s Hydrogen BECCS Innovation Programme.
Not like different graphene manufacturing strategies, which usually 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 extremely environment friendly, requires neither catalyst nor water, and produces no extra 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 prospects combine graphene into their present processes and merchandise to drive essential 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 12 months, our workforce has been relentlessly targeted 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 simply make graphene. We‘re opening up this supermaterial as a viable resolution to industrial decarbonisation, addressing the considerations of main international industries who’ve been postpone previously, and giving them entry to the world’s main specialists in graphene to assist them safe efficiency enhancements that can set them other than the competitors.”
