NanoXplore - Page 6

Group NanoXplore is pleased to announce that it launched a new blow and injection molded plastic facility earlier this year to manufacture engineered plastics products, and is already supplying to more than 30 customers.

NanoXplore is targeting graphene-enhanced thermoplastics in response to broad customer interest for engineering plastics with enhanced electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties. The company recently added a 22,000 sq. ft. plastic injection and blow molding production facility, including mold design and fabrication. This production facility will allow NanoXplore to supply OEMs with final plastic products benefiting from graphene. The company is actively working with several OEMs to become a certified supplier.

Group NanoXplore, a Canada-based company specializing in the production and application of graphene and its derivative materials, announced that it has added graphene-enhanced plastics to its product offering. Compounded pellets for different grades of Polyethylene (PE) and Polycarbonate (PC) are already available and additional plastics are to soon follow.

NanoXplore has a capacity of 400 metric tons per year of compounded master batch pellets. The company has been taking orders and sampling pellets to customers in Europe and North America since January 2016, and it has been focusing recently on polyethylene (PE) thermoplastics and has obtained significant multi-functional improvements in performance compared to base resins. For HDPE at 0.5 weight% graphene loading, a 15% increase in tensile strength was achieved without degrading material toughness. For LLDPE at 15 weight% graphene loading, thermal conductivity was doubled, yield strength increased by more than 30%, and electrical conductivity was increased to the anti-static range.

Group NanoXplore is a Montreal-based company specializing in the production and application of graphene and its derivative materials. The company's CEO and President, Dr. Soroush Nazarpour, was kind enough to answer a few questions we had regarding NanoXplore's technology and business.

Q: Hello Dr. Soroush. Can you update us on your current graphene material production and your new 3-ton GNP production facility?

Our Montreal production facility is running at full steam. Not only are we producing a full range of graphene materials, we are making more and more graphene-enhanced polymer products. In October we will be moving to a new facility, having outgrown our current space. The new facility will double our lab facilities and more than quadruple our production floor space.

We are seeing especially strong demand for graphene-enhanced plastics and rubber, with most customers focusing on improving mechanical and thermal characteristics. We have also seen a lot of emerging demand for coatings for textiles and other flexible substrates for thermal management, improved surface properties and protection.

Group NanoXplore has announced that it has participated in the financing of two innovative graphene applications companies: NanoPhyll, a company dedicated to improving efficiencies in the photocatalytic and photovoltaic markets through the application of customized graphene; Two Carbon, a materials technology company designing next-generation, high performance outdoor products using graphene as a fundamental building block.

Both companies originally approached NanoXplore for support in developing their technology solutions. NanoXplore states that its graphene turned out to be suitable for these applications and the resulting performance was even better than initially projected.

Group NanoXplore, a Montreal-based company specializing in the production and application of graphene and its derivative materials, announced the establishment of a European subsidiary. The new NanoXplore GmbH offices are located in Mainz, Germany in close proximity to the Frankfurt International Airport and in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate (the center of the German chemical and plastics processing industry).

NanoXplore announced that it is producing Graphene Oxide in industrial quantities. The Graphene Oxide is being produced in the same 3 metric tonne per year facility used to manufacture NanoXplore's standard graphene grades and derivative products such as a unique graphite-graphene composite suitable for anodes in Li-ion batteries.

Graphene Oxide (GO) is similar to graphene but with significant amounts of oxygen introduced into the graphene structure. GO, unlike graphene, can be readily mixed in water which has led people to use GO in thin films, water-based paints and inks, and biomedical applications. GO is relatively simple to synthesize on a lab scale using a modified Hummers' method, but scale-up to industrial production is quite challenging and dangerous. This is because the Hummers' method uses strong oxidizing agents in a highly exothermic reaction which produces toxic and explosive gas. NanoXplore has developed a completely new and different approach to producing GO based upon its proprietary graphene production platform. This novel production process is completely safe and environmentally friendly and produces GO in volumes ranging from kilogram to tonne quantities.

Recent news from NanoXplore successful $2.7M financing round, launch of their three tonnes/year production facility have positioned the company as a leading graphene company, and certainly a major player in North America.

The core of the company appears to be their production process, developed in-house. In addition to large capacity, they claim it creates very high quality (low defect) graphene, functionalized during production to facilitate mixing (dispersion) with a broad range of industrial materials. The range of products shows not only high quality graphene powders, but also a couple of unique offerings. Interestingly, they seem open to licensing their production technology.

Canada-based Group NanoXplore announced that its new graphene production facility is in full operation. The new plant can produce up to 3 tonnes of graphene GNPs per year, the largest production capacity in Canada and the fifth largest in the world outside of China.

NanoXplore says that their unique process "gently and efficiently" creates pristine graphene from natural flake graphite without creating the crystalline defects that can limit performance. The company's process also functionalises the graphene material during production making subsequent mixing with a broad range of industrial materials simple and efficient. The company makes several standard grades of graphene and also derivative products such as a unique graphite-graphene composite suitable for anodes in Li-ion batteries.

Canada-based Group NanoXplore announced that it finalized an agreement for a non-brokered private placement financing totaling $2.725M CDN ($2.18 million USD) in December, 2014. The investors are several Canadian individuals with strong backgrounds in chemical and industrial markets and successful records of building successful technology enterprises.

The graphene producer and application developers hopes that these new investors will provide more than just funds - also knowledge and connection in target markets. NanoXplore aims to use the money to accelerate their customer acquisition and sales efforts. The company has seen a strong interest in their products over the last year, especially for applications in smart textiles and Li-ion batteries, as well as lubricants, paints, and polymers.

An interview with Group NanoXplore at a recent IDTechEX event shed light on some of the NanoXplore's products, activities and goals: