Trapping Methane To Make Graphene

Dear Reader,

Earlier this week, Levidian, a British ‘climate technology’ firm based in Cambridge decided on a very interesting strategy to manage excessive methane — they’re turning it into graphene. 

Methane, a gas with greenhouse properties 80 times that of carbon dioxide, is one of the more prevalent byproducts of the fossil fuel industry.

It is released at multiple stages of fossil fuel extraction, processing and transport. 

Typically, it’s burned off in a process referred to as 'flaring', which releases heat and carbon into the atmosphere, but Levidian has a different plan: turn it into graphene. 

Graphene, the carbon-based nanostructure that’s found applications in everything from biotech to aerospace, is solid and largely inert, making it an ideal way to take carbon out of the circulation. 

Trapping Carbon To Make The World's Most Advanced Material

Carbon sequestration — the process of trapping the gas in some sort of semi-permanent state or matrix — isn’t an entirely new idea, but with this approach the unwanted gas can be put to good use. 

Even in its most basic formats, graphene can be added to things like car tires and latex products, as well heat sinks, to dramatically improve strength, service life and thermal management.

The story made headlines earlier this week, but this concept itself isn’t as new as the story makes it out to be. 

For years now, another company — located in Eastern Australia — has been doing the very same thing only with natural gas instead of methane. 

Natural gas, though less carbon-intensive when burned than methane, is nonetheless closely related, and also a major byproduct of various industrial processes. 

This Australian company, unlike Levidian, isn’t a ‘climate tech’ company, but rather, specifically focused on graphene production and graphene products. 

Nobody's Ever Seen Batteries Like This

To them, making graphene isn’t part of a quest to clean the environment, but to push the technological envelope. 

Not only does their graphene production method sequester natural gas, but it also produces some of the cheapest, highest quality graphene available anywhere today — which is important when your goal is to commercialize products for the masses. 

The most promising of the products made possible by this new technique is a graphene-based rechargeable battery. 

Now, I know you may have already seen products advertised as ‘graphene batteries’ on the market, but don’t be fooled. 

These ‘graphene’ batteries are not graphene-based, but rather graphene enhanced. 

The guts of these batteries share the very same lithium-ion and lithium Iron Phosphate architecture with most batteries on the market today. 

Graphene is employed as an additive, helping durability and heat dissipation, but when it comes to the business of moving electrons, that’s still the job of lithium. 

Don't Buy The Hype… The Real Deal Is Coming Soon

The Australian based company I mentioned earlier isn’t playing that game anymore. Their batteries contain no lithium at all, representing a major departure from mainstream battery design. 

And the resulting batteries are on a completely different level. 

Boasting stats such as a 3-5x improvement in energy density and service life, and an astounding 70x improvement in charge speed, these batteries are as big an improvement over lithium-ion batteries as lithium-ion was over nickel-cadmium and lead-acid batteries.

Just imagine charging your phone for 1 minute per week for years on end, without any noticeable performance decay. 

And it doesn’t end there. 

Graphene based batteries are far more durable and reliable, all but eliminating risk of fire or explosion from overheating. 

Last but not least, with lithium out of the picture, the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery monopolizer — the Chinese Communist Party — loses its decades-old grip on the rechargeable battery market. 

Better Batteries, Cleaner Air and A Weaker China? Win Win Win.

So when can we expect to see these batteries on the market?

Well, the company developing this technology is relatively new and too small for most retail investors to have heard of, but nevertheless, is well on the way to commercialization. 

Early production runs are already under way, with potential client firms now doing their own testing. 

If all goes as expected, we could see these batteries start to hit the market before the end of this year. 

By the end of the decade, graphene batteries may unseat lithium-ion as the world standard for distributed energy storage. 

And that bodes quite well for this Australian company and its shareholders. 

With a market cap of less than $50M (USD), it’s less than 1/1000 the size of many of its Chinese competitors, but with a technology this disruptive, size will mean little. 

Want to learn more? I would if I were you. In all my hears in this business, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a battery-related investment with more long term potential. 

You can do the research yourself, or you can check out this quick video presentation to get the whole story, all in one place.