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.
Picture Credit score: Levidian
Levidian’s market-leading LOOP system offers heavy emitters and hard-to-abate industries similar to landfill and aluminium producers with a path to each decarbonize their processes and open up new income streams from the graphene and hydrogen that’s produced. This unlocks decarbonization 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 part 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 12 months – sufficient, for instance, to rework 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 affect on the surroundings.
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 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 decarbonize, fixing the enterprise case on decarbonisation initiatives due to 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 right now.”
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.
Not like different graphene manufacturing methods, 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 strain LOOP course of is extremely 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 staff of scientists who can tailor and functionalize the fabric to assist clients combine graphene into their current processes and merchandise to drive essential 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 12 months, our staff has been relentlessly centered on driving ahead the design of the nozzle, delivering a 20x uplift in gasoline 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 decarbonization, addressing the issues of main world industries who’ve been postpone previously, and giving them entry to the world’s main consultants in graphene to assist them safe efficiency enhancements that can set them aside from the competitors.”
An industrial scale unit has been put in at Levidian’s Cambridge headquarters. The corporate plans to deploy its first industrial LOOP at a buyer website in partnership with clear hydrogen developer Hexla subsequent 12 months.
