First Graphene secures grant for Kainos technology

Nanomaterials developer and producer First Graphene has secured funding for a collaborative research project with Swansea University to determine the market potential of the company’s Kainos Technology.

The $192,000 grant was secured through Analysis for Innovators (A4i) Round 12, Stage 2 funding which supports research to overcome productivity or technical barriers of new technologies.

Delivered by Innovate UK, the six-month project will provide a greater understanding of First Graphene’s Kainos Technology and its ability to produce high-quality, battery-grade synthetic graphite and pristine graphene from petroleum feedstock using a scalable hydrodynamic cavitation manufacturing process.

This process has also demonstrated the ability to produce green hydrogen as a by-product in previous research by the company.

First Graphene Managing Director and CEO Michael Bell said: “As global demand for battery-grade graphite and graphene increases, so does the need to find and secure strong supplies of these raw materials.

“First Graphene’s Kainos Technology shows real potential as a scalable way to manufacture synthetic graphite and graphene, offering a commercial alternative to mining.

“The grant received through the A4I funding competition, via Innovate UK, will greatly support the team of researchers investigating the process behind our hydrodynamic cavitation technology.”

First Graphene’s Hydrodynamic Cavitation Technology can efficiently produce graphite materials and green hydrogen in a single step process.

With Kainos technology already proven at the laboratory scale, this project will focus on using controlled experimentation and analysis to interrogate the hydrodynamic cavitation process.

This will support the development of modelling techniques at Swansea University that will underpin the company’s design basis for scaling up the Kainos Technology in collaboration with the energy industry.

This new process is considered to be particularly well suited for oil refineries where high-quality feedstocks and engineering capabilities are available, whilst the green hydrogen by-product can be utilised as a clean and green energy source to reduce carbon emissions.

This collaborative project follows First Graphene signing a MOU with Abu Dhabi-based EMDAD group that will see the two companies developing small scale, hydrodynamic cavitation reactor, using First Graphene’s Kainos Technology.

Picture: First Graphene