In overall terms, the GRAPHEEN project is aimed at scaling up our own-patented technology for the industrial production of graphene and graphene based composites, with a special focus on the production of nanomaterials for energy storage applications like supercapacitors and Li-ion batteries. Graphene and graphene based composites have emerged as the ideal candidate materials to substitute other conventional materials currently used as electrodes in energy storage devices (most of them currently based on graphite or other forms of carbon). The reason is basically the fact that graphene, which is a recently discovered form of carbon awarded with the Nobel Prize in 2010, is the only material known that gathers together the extraordinary properties of having a great mechanical and tensile strength, the largest surface area described for any other material, a high chemical stability and superior thermal and electrical conductivities. The combination of these extraordinary properties in a single material, makes of graphene a unique material with no others having neither similar nor even closer properties and this is by itself a revolutionary and disruptive discovery, at the height of the Nobel Prize. However, what really makes of graphene a huge promise under a macroeconomic perspective globally is that graphene in essence is carbon, which is one of the most abundant elements in earth. This is why graphene has attracted a huge social, economical and industrial interest over the last years and this is why some sources predict that graphene will become the responsible of the next technological revolution, in the same way that silicon enabled the revolution of the 20th Century, known as “the era of computing and communications”. All these reasons justify the immense research efforts and financing initiatives (private and public) aimed at trying to exploit the unique properties of graphene in several applications and especially in energy storage because of the increasing demand for greener and more efficient energy supply. In this specific area, graphene based materials have proved to substantially increase the energy storage capacity and efficiency of Li-ion batteries and other more recent devices like supercapacitors. However, in spite of the huge progress made on graphene research for energy applications and some other different areas, there are still some barriers that prevent the implementation of this unique material in real industrial applications, and one of the most important ones is the lack of industrially viable methods for the production of graphene and graphene based composites at acceptable prices in an industrial scale.
Gnanomat S.L. has developed and patented a technology for the production graphene based composites, meaning graphene combined with other chemical species like metals, metal oxides and polymers, which offer enormous advantages over other competing technologies: it is a simple and inexpensive process, no chemical treatments are needed, no need for toxic or environmental harmful solvents/reagents and the most important feature is the huge versatility of the process for the production of a wide spectrum of different composite materials. Thanks to the unique features of our technology, it has the potential to become the gold-standard method for industrial production of graphene based materials, offering a solution to overcome the critical barrier in exploiting the potential of graphene. In the GRAPHEEN project we aim at scaling up our process as a way to demonstrate its actual viability as a cost effective method for industrial production of graphene based materials. Our final goal is to industrialize our process and to make it becoming the reference method for production of these materials at industrial scale. With this final goal in mind, during this Phase 1 project we have performed an in-depth evaluation of the feasibility of our business plan, covering its technical feasibility, its commercial feasibility and its financial feasibility.
