Chubais believed in them: how carbon nanotubes are produced in Russia

OCSiAlis the only company that owns a scalable technology for the industrial synthesis of graphene

Graphene nanotubes, or single-walled carbon nanotubes, representThey haveunique properties such as high electrical and thermal conductivity, strength, and length-to-diameter ratio.When material is added to the matrix, they create a three-dimensional network that impartsconductive and reinforcing properties. OCSiAl manufactures nanotubes under the TUBALL™ brand.

Novosibirsk is home to the company's production facilities and research facilities, as well as theprototyping of materials and technologies based on graphene nanotubes — TUBALL CENTER. 

Today OCSiAl is a global company,operating on all continents. Regional branches are open in Europe, the USA, Korea, China (Shenzhen, Shanghai), Hong Kong and Russia, representative offices in Mexico, Israel, Japan, India, Australia, Germany and Malaysia. In addition to its own offices and representative offices, OCSiAl has partners and distributors in 45 countries. OCSiAl employs more than 450 employees from 16 countries. The R&D company employs more than 100 scientists.

Photo courtesy of OCSiAl

From 500 kilograms to 75 tons

Single-walled carbon nanotubes are used forthe manufacture of lithium-ion batteries for mobile phones and other gadgets, flexible touch displays, tires and other automotive parts, self-leveling floors, sports equipment, batteries for electric vehicles and much more. You could even say: the size is small, but the presence is wide. Such nanotubes are five times lighter than copper, 100 times stronger than steel, withstand temperatures up to 1,000 ° C and, when added, even in the smallest proportions, improve the characteristics of the material. For example, if you add 0.001% single-walled nanotubes to concrete, it will immediately become 50% stronger.

In 2013, OCSiAl launched its firsta facility for the production of such graphene nanotubes called Graphetron 1.0. The brand was named TUBALL. A year later, the installation had already synthesized 500 kg of nanotubes, and by 2019, production reached 25 tons per year.

Construction of the second Graphetron 50 installationstarted in 2016. In 2019, she worked in test mode and only now has reached a production capacity of 50 tons. OCSiAl can now produce 75 tons of single-walled graphene nanotubes annually. The volumes obtained are colossal, especially when compared with foreign attempts to produce graphene nanotubes. But not everything is so simple - there are pitfalls explaining why the competitors failed.

Graphene Nanotubesis an allotropic modification of carbon,which is one-atom thick sheets of graphene rolled into a cylinder, and the tubes are particularly strong and flexible. They are synthesized in installations in three ways:

  • using graphite electrodes;
  • by laser vaporization of a graphite target;
  • through a chemical reaction of gases - carbon-containing and auxiliary.

They are used in microelectronics, in the manufacture of plastics, automotive parts and in many other materials.

Carbon nanotubes
Photo: wikipedia.org

An attempt to create mass production of nanotubesfrom graphene one of the first to undertake the German pharmaceutical company Bayer. The pilot plant, producing 60 tons per year, was launched in 2007, and in 2010 full production was launched, it was planned to produce 500 tons annually. The tubes were synthesized by catalysis from a carbon-containing gas at high temperatures, but only multi-walled — not graphene, but graphite tubes — were obtained. Graphite was not as strong and flexible as graphene, and it was difficult and expensive to separate the tubes into layers, so Bayer products were not in great demand, and in 2013 the company closed the project.

The French company Arkema plannedproduce 400 tons of nanotubes annually; Chinese CNano - 500 tons. About 40 organizations in the world tried to open mass production, but they could not get single-walled tubes in each issue.

Currently, they are still produced by the Japanese company Zeon, but it produces about a ton of tubes per year and sells for $ 10 per kilogram.

According to Yuri Koropachinsky, the material is similar tosticky black web. It is 10 times heavier than air and 100 times lighter than water. It must be in a special way not only synthesized, but also transported. The installation is not just a reactor, but a robot plant that independently performs all operations. The finished crushed material is sent to a separate container, it is at the end of the cycle.

Country of ideas, phone of happiness and $ 2 million

In the mid-2000s, Yuri Koropachinsky decidedtake a break from his many business projects, sold all his assets and went to live in Australia. The funds received were enough not to work and live comfortably, but in 2006 he decided to return to business, because he thought: an unemployed father is a bad example for his son.

Yuri Koropachinsky— co-founder and president of OCSiAl.Before starting his business career, he participated in scientific research in the field of biophysics, working at the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He created his first venture capital company in the early 1990s. After the successful exit of one of his investment projects in 2004 (a manufacturer of agricultural equipment with 20 thousand employees and a turnover of $230 million), he formed the SM.Group company, which invested in promising high-tech startups, and since 2012 has focused on carbon nanomaterials, which led to the creation of OCSiAl.

Koropachinsky gathered his business partners inprevious projects - Yuri Zelvensky and Oleg Kirillov - and went to Novosibirsk. He wanted to invest in a high-tech business. Participating in a meeting of the RAS, Yuri announced that he was looking for original ideas.

Yuri Koropachinsky
Photo courtesy of OCSiAl

However to the final idea the teamEntrepreneurs walked for three years. Future creators of OCSiAl met with scientists from 23 research institutes of Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk. Addressing each institute, the team asked the management to arrange a meeting with scientists who had the most original inventions. At these meetings, businessmen asked: what do you know how to do best or what no one else can do? If there was a specific answer to this question, the topic was discussed further.

So idea seekers considered 1,500 options,364 projects in physics, chemistry and biology were allocated, in which they invested a little money to study their feasibility and potential market. “There were quite amusing projects among them,” recalls Yuri Koropachinsky. - For example, one scientist offered a telephone of joy, he even had a confirmation from the Ministry of Communications of the Russian Federation. I asked how it works, and he replied: “Like all cell phones, only when they start talking on it, everyone is happy.” As a result, $ 2 million was spent, 12 projects were transformed in the company, but still, none of them could be called truly unique by Yuri.

Academician and Nanotubes

In 2009, at the next meeting with investors inDirector of the International Scientific Center for Thermophysics and Energy of the Institute of Thermophysics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Mikhail Predtechensky came to Novosibirsk. By that time, he had been creating technologies for IT companies (HP, Samsung) and the gas industry (AirProducts) for 20 years. To the same question about what he knows how to do, Mikhail answered: “That's it,” and suggested discussing the problem differently: “Tell me what you want to get, and I will make breakthrough technology.”

Mikhail Predtechensky and Anatoly Chubais
Photo courtesy of OCSiAl

As a result of long conversations, the scientist andentrepreneurs decided that they needed to work with the conversion of materials. In December 2009, during a regular conversation about projects, Mikhail Predtechensky said that he knew how to create nanotubes. He readily said that they are very light, but durable, and improve the quality of many materials. There was only one minus - single-walled carbon nanotubes in small quantities were obtained only in the laboratory, so they were very expensive. Michael suggested producing these tubes on an industrial scale.

So, in February 2010, the OCSiAl company was opened, creating graphene nanotubes according to the technique of Mikhail Predtechensky.

Fateful black dots and Chubais

Predtechensky began making tubes in plasmagenerator, which he also invented himself. All the generators he had previously worked with quickly burned out their electrodes. The production technology itself remains a trade secret of OCSiAl. It’s hard to blame them for this - competition in the market is high, and possessing unique products brings great benefits.

Plasma generator- a technical device in which plasma is generated using electric current, and it is used for processing materials.

Mikhail got the idea to try to doliquid electrodes because the liquid does not corrode. He launched an arc between bathtubs in which there was a melt, the metal melted, puddles turned out, and the arc closed. Now the generator with liquid electrodes could work any time with any material. It was this device that Mikhail Predtechensky used to create graphene nanotubes, the official name of which is SWCNT (from the English Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes - “single-walled carbon nanotubes” - “High Tech”).

Laboratory OCSiAl
Photo courtesy of OCSiAl

Officially, graphene is considered open in 2004. The discoverers are physicists Andrei Geim and Konstantin Novosyolov, who received the Nobel Prize for this. But in fact, this substance was written back in the 20th century. In 1952, physicist-chemist Leonid Radushkevich obtained microscopic images of nanotubes after synthesis. And in 1977, scientists from the Institute of Catalysis of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences during experiments with dehydrogenation catalysts discovered carbon cylinders under a microscope. In 1991, the discovery of such nanotubes was written by the Japanese physicist Sumio Iijima.

As already mentioned, a full description of the technologykept secret, but the general principle is this: on the substrate in the generator, nanoparticles are formed, flying in a gas of hydrocarbons (methane and similar gases) heated to 1,000 ° C and above. A graphene nanotube grows on each nanoparticle. The synthesis takes place inside the installation.

Production is patented. The main principle of mass production was to reduce the price of products to $ 1-2.

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes are synthesizedfaster and easier, but their conductivity, flexibility and strength are much lower than that of single-walled ones, which means that they need to be added to the material in large quantities: if hundredths of a percent of single-walled nanotubes are enough to improve the properties of the material, then multi-walled ones require several tens of percent. In addition, it turned out that adding multilayer tubes to materials is difficult. They are tangles of tightly bound tubes, which are difficult and expensive to unravel, and powder from unwound tubes does not give the materials the necessary conductivity and strength, and it was not purchased much. Therefore, the competitors of OCSiAl, producing multilayer tubes (Bayer, Arkema and others), were forced to curtail their production because of its unprofitability.

Anatoly Chubais
Photo courtesy of OCSiAl

On the synthesis of the first portion in the installation of MichaelForerunner left a month. They turned out quite a bit - a few black specks on a white background of the filter, but a special microscope showed that these are single-walled tubes. Over the next two years, OCSiAl contributed $ 20 million to the development, but more extensive investments were required, and in 2011, Yuri with a “spotted” filter went to the head of Rusnano, Anatoly Chubais.

Chubais gave in to the confidence of the representativeOCSiAl. Rusnano invested $20 million - this was the first third-party investment. Using these investments, the company built the first synthesis installation, Graphetron 1.0, in the founders’ homeland of Novosibirsk.

Climbing

A separate difficulty was to find buyers. “It takes a lot of effort and money,” complains the founder of the company. - But it is necessary to demonstrate to a potential buyer the effect of nanotubes specifically on its products. How do we do it? We take the material, add one ten thousandth of the nanotubes and get a completely different material. "

Nanotubes are evenly distributed in the materialand create a reinforcing and conductive network. For example, if you add single-walled nanotubes to the material from which lithium-ion batteries are made, it begins to conduct better electric current, which means that batteries last longer charge.

The first advertising move was to send out freesamples to manufacturers of different materials. One gram was sent to several thousand Russian and foreign companies, many became interested and responded. The first CNT was bought by a Korean company to increase the strength of composites and conductive coatings. OCSiAl executives realized that promotion would only be effective if they showed what the result of adding single-walled tubes to materials. Next to Graphetron, the company opened a Prototyping Center, where it began to produce various materials including graphene nanotubes.

Single Wall Carbon Tire Tire
Photo courtesy of OCSiAl

For example, company scientists have developed technologymanufacturers of bulk floors with CNT and donated it to manufacturing companies free of charge, as a result of which 80% of such floors are created in Russia. Bulk floors of materials into which single-walled carbon nanotubes are added have good electrical conductivity; moreover, nanotubes do not change the color of materials, their viscosity and spreadability, so the consumption of materials in the manufacture of bulk floors does not increase.

Similarly developed technologyfiberglass pipes and hardened asphalt. Adding CNT to the resin from which fiberglass is made for fiberglass pipes gives the material volume and uniform conductivity, which reduces the risk of accidents in explosive industries (for example, in the coal industry), and the pipes become stronger by 15%. Asphalt concrete from bitumen containing carbon nanotubes becomes 67% more resistant to rutting and 67.5% more resistant to cracking.

Initially, nanotubes were produced in the formpowder, but OCSiAl laboratories have begun to produce concentrates and suspensions for easier addition to materials. Now the second significant product of OCSiAl is TUBALL MATRIX concentrates and suspensions containing dispersed nanotubes. It is quite difficult to add powder with nanotubes to materials and distribute it evenly over any material, and uneven distribution will not give the effect of adding CNT. Therefore, OCSiAl specialists decided to create concentrates and suspensions with already distributed nanotubes. For this purpose, a special ultrasonic installation TUBBOX was developed, which alternately uses mechanical and ultrasonic dispersion methods. Mechanical dispersion produces homogeneous mixtures, while ultrasonic dispersion separates bundles of nanotubes at the nanoscale into individual objects.

The 0.01% TUBALL added to the material is evenly distributed over its matrix and creates a three-dimensional network with reinforcing and electrically conductive properties.

OCSiAl is primarily market orientedlithium-ion batteries, in which nanotubes are added to silicon anodes, the market for tires, asphalt surfaces, composites and coatings. In 2019, the products were purchased by the Russian company Eco Group and added to asphalt: using adhesive additives, 0.025% nanotubes were introduced into bitumen, and it was added to asphalt concrete. A section of the M4 Don federal highway has been laid with new material; in the future, it is planned to lay the road network with a coating made of nanotubes.>

Among those who already use TUBALL, Russianthe Unicom-Service enterprise, which produces polyurethane shafts for conveyor belts (adds 0.3% of TUBALL MATRIX concentrate for antistatic characteristics), the Chinese manufacturer of drill bits for oil rigs Orient Energy & Technology Ltd (1.7% of the concentrate is added to the rubber for elasticity of the stator in drills), Russian manufacturer of glass containers "Ekran" (adds nanotubes to the liquid for spraying).

In Russia there were no more than 2% of potentialcustomers, so OCSiAl began to open branches in the USA, Europe and Asia. Now the company has 600 regular customers around the world, more than 2,000 companies test nanotubes, more than 90% of products are exported.

Unicorn and a new era

In 2019, the A&NN investment group bought0.5% shares and valued the business at a billion. Thanks to this, OCSiAl entered the list of so-called unicorns - new companies that have not yet overcome losses, but have already received a market valuation of $1 billion.

Anatoly Chubais and Yuri Koropachinsky
Photo courtesy of OCSiAl

At the opening of the Graphetron 50, Anatoly Chubais said: “OCSiAl is creating a new era of human materials. These are the fantastic properties of a single-walled carbon allotrope, which allows increasing the strength and electrical properties with additives to almost any material. All that has been done today is only the beginning of the path on which global updating of materials in the real sector on the globe stands. When a young businessman, impudent and aggressive, approached me, I looked into those honest eyes and decided that he could achieve this. ”

The company is currently represented in 45countries of Europe and Asia. At the same time, the head office was opened in Luxembourg. By 2023, OCSiAl intends to build there a reactor producing 100 tons per year, as well as build reactors in all developed countries.

“OCSiAl is actually a Luxembourg company, -Yuri explains. - In order to protect intellectual property, it is necessary to understand English law, focus on consumers and investors around the world. The USA and Europe consume 25% of our products, so we place production closer to the main consumer. In addition, large companies want to receive supplies from different countries. Therefore, we need different locations. "

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