Elcora Awarded Grant to Develop Supercapacitors
Halifax, December 4, 2018 - Elcora Advanced Materials Corp. (TSXV: ERA) (OTCQB: ECORF) (FSE: ELM) (the "Company" or "Elcora"), is pleased to announce that it has been awarded an NSERC-ENGAGE grant with Dr. Heather Andreas at Dalhousie University.
The project will focus on studying Elcora's high-quality graphene as an electrode material for supercapacitors. Dr. Andreas has worked on carbon-based supercapacitors (SCs) for more than 14 years. Dr. Andreas has expertise in:
- Evaluating supercapacitor materials
- Graphene
- Understanding charge movement/redistribution
- Surface functional groups
- Carbon reactivity during charge/discharge
- The effect of impurities
- Modifying carbon materials to achieve desired supercapacitor performance
The super capacitor market is expected to reach 2.18 Billion USD by 2022 at a CAGR of 20.7 % between 2016 and 2022 (https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/supercapacitor-market-worth-218-billion-usd-by-2022-2016-11-28). Factors such as high storage capabilities, need of power conservation, high performance supercapacitors for consumer and automotive applications, and additional capabilities such as moisture resistant, light weight and low equivalent series resistance are the key drivers for supercapacitor market (https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/supercapacitor.asp).
Elcora is a producer of high-quality carbon materials - specifically graphite and graphene - and has identified supercapacitors (SCs) as an important future application for graphite materials. Supercapacitors are energy storage systems (like batteries) that are typically used in applications where an almost instantaneous response is required (e.g. camera flashes, air-bag deployment, defibrillators AED's and airplane emergency chutes). In SCs, the charge is stored on a carbon electrode, meaning SC performance is incredibly sensitive to the carbon's morphology, chemistry, reactivity/stability and impurities. The common misconception is that carbon is a simple material and all carbons behave similarly - in fact, carbon is incredibly complex and subtle changes in the pore size, structure, degree of graphitization, surface area, chemical environment, etc. can strongly impact carbon performance. To understand graphene's SC applicability requires knowledge of all these parameters and vitally how these parameters impact the performance. Dr. Andreas is ideally suited to study and optimize Elcora's graphite-based products for supercapacitor applications.
According to Troy Grant, Chief Executive Officer, "This announcement is great news for Elcora. The funding allows Elcora to collaborate with one of the worlds top researchers in how to understand and optimize graphene/graphite for supercapacitor applications. We expect to demonstrate that Elcora's graphene and graphite-based products are ideally suited for supercapacitor applications. This research may help Elcora secure supply agreements for it's high-quality graphene and graphite-based products."
About Elcora Advanced Materials Corp.
Elcora was founded in 2011 and has been structured to become a vertically integrated graphite & graphene company. Elcora processes, refines, and produces both graphite & graphene. As part of the vertical integration strategy Elcora is securing high-grade graphite and graphene precursor graphite from operations in Sri Lanka and other countries which are already in production. Elcora has developed a cost-effective process to make high-quality graphite, graphite products and graphene that are commercially scalable. This combination means that Elcora has the tools and resources for graphite and graphene vertical integration.
For further information please visit the company's website at http://www.elcoracorp.com
For further information please contact: Troy Grant, Director, President & CEO, Elcora Advanced Materials Corp., T: +1 902 802-8847 F: +1 902 446-2001.
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