Sustainable Development Goals
Organizations Involved:
Mitsubishi Materials Corporation, Onahama Refining & Smelting Co, Tokyo University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Several Tire Manufacturers & Recyclers
Services:
Design & Engineering, Turn-Key DBC, Due Diligence, Supply Chain Management, Component Supply
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have the potential to revolutionize multiple industries due to their extraordinary strength, electrical conductivity, and lightweight properties. These cylindrical carbon structures, thousands of times thinner than a human hair yet stronger than steel, are paving the way for next-generation materials in aerospace, construction, and electronics. In energy storage, CNTs are enhancing the performance of batteries and supercapacitors, leading to longer-lasting, faster-charging devices. In medicine, they're being explored for targeted drug delivery and advanced biosensors. As CNTs become more affordable and scalable to produce, their integration into everyday technologies could usher in a new era of high-performance, sustainable innovation that redefines what’s possible across science and industry.
The Challange:
Is it possible to recover or convert waste into advanced materials?
Nanotechnology is expected to revolutionize our world as airplanes and telecommunications did during the last century. By manipulating atoms on a scale of one millionth of a centimeter, engineers can create new materials with previously unimaginable properties. Nano-enhanced products are expected to account for 50% of all electronics and information technology products and over 25% of all healthcare products by 2025.
Mitsubishi Corporation, one of the world's leading trading companies, began working with Klean's technologies in the late 1980s and 1990s to apply its unique carbonization technology that is integrated with a synthesis and purification technology so that large quantities of low-cost energy, carbon nanotubes, and fullerenes can be produced from alternative feedstocks such as scrap tires in a continuous process. The system's design is based on the Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) Growth process, in which unique chemicals are used to create a density gradient, and the isolated carbon nanotubes gather in specific regions by type, which can then be harvested as a pure material. The material acts as a semiconductor or a metal as the nanotubes form during this synthesis process. Nanomaterials are typically grown and sold as mixed structures. Semiconducting and metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes can be successfully isolated by density differentiation.
The Solution:
After decades of research and development, with early commercial operations underway, ongoing research continues to advance the purity of material production. A joint pilot project was established in Japan in 2000, capable of producing 0.4 TPA of nanomaterials. Since then, production quantities have steadily increased as the project has scaled up from its initial design capacity to now process approximately 2,500,000 used tires exclusively (approximately 20,000 tons per year) for this purpose. With full-scale production set to commence in the near term, the output is expected to be 7,000 tonnes per annum (TPA) of nano-recovered carbon black and 700 tonnes per annum (TPA) of carbon nanotubes. The parties involved plan to expand the production of nanocarbons tenfold by 2025.
Several different materials are produced using Klean's technologies:
The Outcome:
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