The buckypaper is a material with unique characteristics and great potential for application in sectors such as aeronautics and the automotive industry.

The carbon nanotubes buckypapers have extraordinary mechanical, thermal and electrical properties – one tenth of a weight and 500 times stronger than steel – which make it an excellent material for sectors such as aeronautics and the automotive industry. According to the CEO of Sisteplant, Ana Santiago, “Buckypaper is one of the materials with the most future for different industries. Its manufacturing is being led by US companies. UU and Japan. In the rest of the world it has only been manufactured discreetly and in laboratories; hence the relevance of this project, which seeks to promote the industrialization of this product in Europe so that it leaves the laboratories to the factories “.

Sisteplant, a company specialized in supporting companies in the industrial and services sector in improving their competitiveness, creating intelligent and humanistic organizations, has participated in the creation of the first buckypaper factory of carbon nanotubes in Europe, as part of the Platform project .

The complete project includes the creation in Europe of three pilot plants of different products based on carbon nanotubes, to achieve the integration of these materials in the market. The first one has focused on buckypapers or carbon nanotube films. The industrialization of products based on this material presents several difficulties because the behavior of nanomaterials is not always predictable, and therefore it is necessary to make more validation trials of the processes than in a conventional technology. In addition, its manufacture is expensive, so another goal is the reduction of costs through the optimization of the process.

Platform is driven by a consortium of 11 companies from six European countries – Belgium, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Poland and Spain – although the Spanish presence is superior to the rest – and is led by Tecnalia, the Basque Country’s technology center.

Sisteplant has carried out the process engineering of the project; has defined and tested new work procedures and has manufactured, by means of 3D printing, devices to perform proofs of concept, before its final construction on a real scale.

The buckypapers factory is already working in San Sebastian and is the only one of its characteristics that exists in Europe. In addition, one of the major disruptions contributed by this project is that it allows to go from manufacturing in static – as up to now – to doing it in dynamic, so that the material can be produced in rolls, in a continuous way, without making stops. Thus, it has gone from making 5 discs a week, to rolls with a capacity of 50m2 per week. With the development of the process on an industrial scale it is getting to supply these materials to various companies that are already testing them.

ABC.es – MADRID – 02/17/2019 (Translation Soft)