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 grant is valued at approximately AU$192,152 (over USD$130,000) and was secured through Analysis for Innovators (A4i) Round 12, Stage 2 funding, delivered by Innovate UK. The funding is specifically meant for businesses utilizing expertise from leading research facilities across the UK to overcome
productivity or technical barriers of new technologies towards market readiness.
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.
With the 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 said 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 utilized as a clean and green energy source to reduce carbon emissions. This has been identified as a particularly beneficial technology for the oil and gas sector as it looks towards greener, lower carbon energy options.
The process aims to simultaneously help meet the growing demands for battery materials powering the EV automotive sector by producing high-purity graphitic materials that would otherwise be produced by conventional mining and processing methods.
This collaborative project follows First Graphene signing a binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Abu Dhabi-based integrated services provider EMDAD group in October 2023. The MOU will result in the two companies developing and providing a proposal to fund a small scale, hydrodynamic cavitation reactor, using First Graphene’s Kainos Technology.
The proposal could result in the commissioning of this combined technology for use in the oil industry to convert petroleum feedstock to battery-grade graphite, graphene and hydrogen.
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. I look forward to providing further updates as we advance commercialization of our Kainos Technology to deliver the materials needed to power global decarbonization and electrification.”