UK-based Perpetuus Advanced Materials announced the completion of a "real world" road testing program of car tires enhanced with surface-engineered graphene materials.
Over the last 6 months, Perpetuus graphene enhanced tires were fitted to high mileage, commercial light vehicles, which primarily travel on the UK’s A and B roads. The tests compared the graphene-enhanced tires with regular tires and monitored the performance of both tires. Perpetuus says that the tests showed that the graphene-enhanced tires produced an average of 40% increase in wear resistance over the regular tires.
Perpetuus also updates that it is performing road testing in Asia and Europe for tires for bikes, light commercial vehicles and taxis. The company is now introducing its graphene-enhanced tires for aircraft and industrial tires as well. The company is collaboration with seven tire manufacturers (for passenger vehicles, motorcycles and cycles).
In fact the world's largest cycle manufacturer, Hero Cycles, one of the companies collaborating with Perpetuus, is aiming to start pre-production trials of graphene-enhanced cycle tires, for use on its premium brand bicycles.
Perpetuus aims to launch its first commercial graphene-enhanced tires in Q4 2018 or early Q1 2019.
Perpetuus has recently built a graphene factory in Wales, that has the capacity to produce 500 tons per year of graphene materials. The output of the factory can be increased to 1,000 tons per year - or enough to make around 10 million 15-inch car tires. The plant's demand can further be increased to 10,000 tons per year - and the company hopes to reach this capacity as the demand from tire makers increases.
