LEVIDIAN: LOOP to Power Circular Economy and Decarbonisation

In May, at Innovation Zero – the UK’s premier climate tech conference – in London, the changemakers and disruptors of technology, energy, and policy came together to demonstrate intention, invention and thought-leadership as the UK looks to take a front seat in the journey towards Net Zero.

Cambridge-based Levidian led the conversation around decarbonisation and production and use of ‘miracle material’ graphene and hydrogen. Levidian is the science-based company behind LOOP, a containerised engineering system that fuels decarbonisation of methane.

At the Working Group on decarbonisation, Levidian CEO, John Hartley chaired a discussion titled: “Scaling Up: Unlocking Cement and Concrete Innovation and Deployment”. He said that financing and cross sector collaboration are key in driving progress.

Marketing Director Rebecca Zeitlin agrees, saying that Levidian has done everything required to make itself appealing to partners, growing aggressively in the process.

“We have two advantages,” she states. “On graphene, our internal expertise and our track record of producing high-quality, consistent material makes us easy to work with for companies who want to explore graphene. We still have a hurdle to get people to want to explore graphene, but when we get over that we have the best available team to deliver good results.

“With LOOP,” she adds, “our technology is so unique that a lot of companies are very interested in how they can have it. We have spoken to a lot of companies about LOOP, and in many cases they need to process a lot of gas. We’re working to be able to deliver that scale.”

Scale is the immediate challenge, and Levidian is building quickly.

LOOP, GRAPHENE, HYDROGEN

Operating since 2012, the initial focus of the company was to complete research projects around the commercial application of graphene. Graphene is prized because of its strength and flexibility. 200 times stronger than steel but a million times thinner than a human hair, it is a brilliant conductor of heat and electricity, and can be made water resistant. The possibilities are endless for this relatively new material, with some expectations of a market worth €550m by 2025.

Levidian produces graphene and hydrogen through its LOOP technology, which was previously not presented in the deployable, convenient form that it is today. A proven method, developed inhouse, helps Levidian to create graphene at scale. The only required input is electricity and methane.

“We put methane gas in one end, we blast it with microwaves to ‘break it’, and you end up with pure carbon atoms that are reformed to be graphene,” explains Zeitlin. “Some methane remains, and you get hydrogen – rich blend – gas which is 70% hydrogen by volume. It’s an efficient way of making hydrogen at point of use and if you’re using waste methane – in Luxembourg we will use methane from anaerobic digestion from food waste – you are producing decarbonised energy from a waste source. By using LOOP in the middle, you are producing much less CO2 and you are getting solid carbon as a benefit which can be sold or utilised.

“It is carbon capture but before combustion,” she adds, highlighting LOOP as an intervention technology, stripping carbon out of methane and reducing the amount of CO2 that enters the atmosphere. “It provides a significant decrease in the end amount of carbon being emitted,” she furthers, “and the technology is relatively uncomplicated, un-intensive, and unassuming, and you can literally plug it into the wall.”

CONTAINERISED

Installation of LOOP can help businesses to reduce CO2 potential of their natural gas by up to 40% instantly by replacing it with hydrogen which, when produced sustainably, is much more ecological. The technology is housed in a standard-size container (not essential) and runs without disturbance. Zeitlin says that it’s no more intrusive than a ‘slightly noisy air conditioner’ and because of this, interest is growing.

“It provides a degree of flexibility that other technologies don’t have,” Zeitlin highlights. “Essentially, any place that you would want to deploy it would already have the methane source and probably electricity, and that is all it needs. It doesn’t use water, and it only needs a very small amount of argon gas for maintenance which is included in the container. You don’t need major infrastructure overhaul – especially for the smaller units.

“We have one in Abu Dhabi. We have several on site in Cambridge, and we have one imminent in Scotland. We have another booked in the UAE, and another in Luxembourg.”

With major clients, including water treatment companies and other big utilities, Levidian is looking at the potential of unboxing the technology and installing ‘large warehouses full of LOOPs’ to process the large amount of gases that are produced in these operations. It is simply inefficient to have a whole field full of containers and a single large system would provide significant space saving. However, most clients are industrial scale but SMME in size, meaning a containerised unit is perfect.

Zeitlin gives credit to the company’s new shareholders for the vision around selling LOOP technology for use on site with clients. When Chairman Jamie Edmiston acquired Levidian in 2020 – against an unpredictable economic backdrop – he identified a need to redefine the company’s longer-term strategy, becoming a climate technology business.

“With that came a refocusing and the realisation that the LOOP technology on its own is really useful even without the graphene. Our whole business since then has been pivoting towards a broader overarching theme of decarbonisation,” she says.

Today, the company is home to more than 50 of the best minds in climate tech, with one of the original founders, Professor Krzysztof Koziol, still holding the position of Chief Science Officer.

“We have an applied technology team that does R&D projects with customers to develop uses for graphene, and we also have an entire R&D team scaling up the LOOP technology so that it can process more gas more quickly. We are deploying LOOPs around the world to do decarbonisation jobs as well as producing graphene,” details Zeitlin, adding that the team continues to grow as companies reach out to partner.

“The DNA of the company remains the same – it’s what we have proven over a decade. We have just slightly shifted what it will do in the world. The executive team is new and brings experience from energy businesses. We are rapidly expanding our senior management team to cover everything from supply chain to project management across all of the elements required to fully commercialise. We recently renovated the office as we ran out of room to put people.”

VERY POSITIVE PEOPLE

The vision of Levidian is to contribute to a circular economy by converting greenhouse gases into innovative solutions and materials. To do this, people must advance the knowledge that is already held and create new solutions. Levidian is very much a people business, and the values of the business reflect the people within: Science led, innovative, smart, and collaborative.

Zeitlin says that within this fast-growth environment, people have always been at the core of problem solving. “Every time we identify a challenge, we take quick action to address it through people – that is central to our strategy. We know the technology is good, but for us to make it work as a commercial enterprise, we have to have the right people in the right roles. We have made some incredible hires with people with amazing experience. That is the exciting bit – you go from a few guys in a room to having ISO accreditation and achieving the mass that works.”

Right now, focus remains on the two key offerings: graphene and LOOP. Advancing R&D with both, and understanding more about potential applications alongside clients is at the heart of every action as the company accelerates towards its goals.

“On the graphene side, there are different challenges. The material has been around for a long time but commercialising it is challenging. We are focused on finding the early adopters at volume. We are going to be producing huge amounts of graphene when we have all of the LOOPs deployed, and we need to find homes for it all,” says Zeitlin.

Concrete is just one of six areas currently under the microscope at Levidian. Graphene can be added to mortars and cement to increase strength and reduce cost. Battery and energy transfer technology, paints and coatings, composites, thermoplastics, and rubber are also key focus areas, where the addition of graphene can have big benefits, already proven in early tests.

“On the LOOP side, the more in the field the better. Internally, we are heavily focused on R&D to make LOOP bigger and able to process larger gas volume – that is critical to our success as a business,” Zeitlin highlights.

This is why the business is quickly building its outreach, to ensure it meets as many people as possible – individuals, scientists, researchers, companies, corporates, governments, investors etc – to build partnerships and collaborate as it moves forward into the unknown. Zeitlin is confident and buoyant going forward as Levidian proves its strength through innovation.

“Overall, the feeling is very positive and driven to meet our ambitions. Every week feels like a new discovery is being made, and the speed at which our R&D teams are delivering is very fast – that is thrilling,” she concludes.