Mamoun Taher 0:03  

The quest for raw material is soaring in the transition to a sustainable world. For many materials, the demand outstrips the supply. Copper is one example. Did you know that a single electric vehicle contains up to 85 kilograms of copper. This is one of the reasons why the demand for copper already exceeds the supply. The deficit is estimated to be around 10 million tonnes by 2030. So what if we could replace some of that copper with aluminum? It's less conductive than copper, it's weaker, but it's also 70% lighter than copper and 75% cheaper. The beauty with graphene is that it boosts other materials. Just a small amount of graphene improves both electrical and thermal conductivity and also mechanical strength considerably. That's why researchers around the world have struggled to industrialize it with limited success. You see, the graphene flakes tend to agglomerate, which reduces its magical properties. Graphmatech has solved the issue. With a patented solution, we can keep the graphene layers separated and thereby retain their unique properties. So just a small amount of graphene composite from Graphmatech has the potential to make aluminum wire as conductive as copper, relieving some of the pressure on the world copper resources. So what can it do to copper? 3D printing copper with a laser is usually a challenge. Due to the reflectivity of the copper powder, it doesn't absorb the energy sufficiently, resulting in printed parts with low density. Graphmatech has invented a process that coats every single copper grain with our graphene composite, reducing the reflectivity by up to 67%. Solving the density issue. Graphene composite from Graphmatech can be used to improve conductivity and durability in all types of metal powder technologies. It can be used in all powders for additive manufacturing too. Not only to reduce reflectivity, but also for production process improvements, such as flowability of the powder. And this is just the beginning. Do you want to add an extra edge to your material or process? Contact us.

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Mamoun Taher  2:43  

So hi, everyone. It's a pleasure being here. So humankind, we have been extremely good, at manipulating and improving materials to deliver functionality. We have been making things super efficient. And we have been always looking for functionality, things to be stronger, lighter, more conductive, and smarter. This has been amazing, right? And this has enabled many different industrial revolutions. So from making steam engines, to being able to compute things and being able to fly and come to Barcelona from different parts of the world, and going really beyond this, and go for example, to the moon and to Mars. And all of this, thanks to the materials developments, right. However, we have a big challenge here. So we did this on the cost of our planet, we really consumed the planet intensively, we created the plastics that ended up in the ocean. And then we cut a lot of forests and then we emitted a lot of carbon dioxide. Then the question is, is it really worth it? So in order to tackle these challenges, and stay the depth we have for the planet, a new industrial revolution has begun. 

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Mamoun Taher  4:12

So this revolution is about digitalization, electrification, and decarbonisation. Basically, if we look deeper into this, what we are doing, we are doing this for cleaning the shit we created, right, sorry for saying this. This is amazing, but we have to be careful and learn from the lessons we have made many years ago and not keep doing the same things for the new industrial revolution. So if I'll give you one example. You know, for decarbonisation, and for electrification, we need a lot of raw materials and for example copper, it's a conductive metal that is chosen for many applications, and this metal is used for energy storage, it's used for energy generation, it's used for electrical vehicles, and for charging stations and way beyond. And if we look between 2020 and 2030, this decade, what will happen to the copper demand, you can see the percentage increase. And that is a very big problem, because we don't have sufficient copper, for delivering those decarbonisation and electrification plans. 

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Mamoun Taher  5:30

And you know, by the way, we are really good at recycling all the copper, we don't have a problem with recycling copper, the problem is with the amount of copper needed for delivering these big plants. And here what you saw that we have a deficit of 10 million tonnes already this decade? And how are we going to do all the electrification if we don't have sufficient materials? So are we going to continue to consume the planet to do more mining? I think in our toolbox as engineers and scientists, we have solutions, and we have to use them to tackle this challenge we have now and I am not talking science fiction 400 years ahead. So of course, we took a step, and that's fantastic. But we still have a really long way to go. And materials, again, they will be a key. And in order to enable true industrial revolution, what do I mean by true? Not to be on the cost of the planet. So we have to launch something new, which is materials 5.0, I just came with a number. And there we have to think beyond functionality. So the materials should be sustainable, circular, and should be smart. And let me elaborate a little: what do I mean by smart here? Smart in the way it's used and the way it's utilized? If we can use less, let's use less if we can integrate sensors, let's do it. And then let me put another question: Can we decarbonize the planet by using carbon technology? 

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Mamoun Taher  7:04

So we listen to the Professor before this saying that, yes, we can turn waste into graphene. That's fantastic. At Graphmatech we are doing different things. So what we are doing is based on electrification. You know, that's interesting in Europe only in Europe in this continent, in 2030, there will be 1.2 million tons of batteries to be recycled lithium batteries, from electrical vehicles. And each battery contains graphite, right for the anode side, mostly. And then when we recycle our battery, we extract all the metals, lithium, cobalt, aluminum, copper, what is left over is called the Black Mass and usually doesn't have a lot of value. And then what we have been developing at the Graphmatech together with partners, for example, one of the Giga factories in Sweden, we take the black mass from batteries, and we put it into processes to make graphene out of this. And we don't stop here, we took the next step to make components to be used for electrification. By doing this we are closing the loop. And here I show you a few examples of what we are doing. One of the examples is the metal industry which is heavily criticized for its carbon dioxide emission. So when we are manufacturing metals, we are emitting a lot. So here we invented the technology to incorporate the graphene within metals starting from metal powder. And by doing this we get metals to be way better in properties than the metal itself. And here I am talking beyond alloying elements. For example, when you do like stainless steel or something. And this means that we can utilize way less metals, which means we can save carbon dioxide from the manufacturing, from transportation and all these kinds of things.

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Mamoun Taher  8:52

So we calculated only 10% of the aluminum market will save 65 million tons of carbon dioxide emitted every year which is equal to 3% of the EU emission roughly. So the other example is the plastics. And here I show you some examples about thinking beyond functionality. So we invented a technology to coat metal polymer powder with a thin layer of graphene on the surface. And then 3D print, as you can see here, an electrical motor, fully operating zero metals, super lightweight, electrical motor, and this can be made from recycled plastic and from ocean plastic, where we are developing our next pilot. So we can clean the environment, creating something with engineering value without damaging the planet. So what do we need in order to do this? So we really need to incorporate sustainability in our product design. And in our material choice. It's not only functionality, it should be way more than that. And here it's a core for everyone, all the engineers designing anything, think functionality and the other components circularity and sustainability and these kinds of things. And of course, we need this out of the box thinking, we need more startups. Myself, I have been a researcher, I spun out a company, and I wanted to go in and make an impact. So we need more impact startups from all the great research ideas. I mean, look at this event, fantastic ideas have been presented, how much of those ideas we are taking to scale, a really low number. So we have to increase this number of impact startups, from research institutes and from universities and do the impact. And in order to do this, we need investment. So that's why we have to put all these puzzle pieces together in order to create the impact. And then we have to involve the old stakeholders, existing industry, end users, investors, researchers, everyone should take part of this. And of course, it's about taking responsibility at the end of the day. So we are a team of 18 based in middle of Sweden, Uppsala. So we have our projects in 14 countries. We are backed up by very strong investors including ABB the Swedish government, green investment ventures and others. We are building this journey to create the impact from the graphene technology. Thank you very much!

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