Carbonova, a Canada-based carbon fibre start-up, has secured $6 million in funding to scale up its technology.
Carbon-fibre reinforced compounds are much-prized material choices in demanding application fields, such as the automotive industry, because of their combination of rigidity, mechanical strength, and light weight.
Carbonova’s carbon fibre reinforced polymers are used to replace steel and aluminium in many applications due to their enhanced mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties. The start-up also produces carbon fibre reinforced rubber, inks and coatings, lubricants, and electronic devices.
The Company intends to use the funds to help build the first commercial demonstration carbon nanofibers unit in Canada. It currently operates a pilot facility at its headquarters in northeast Calgary, Alberta.
The commercial demonstration expansion is expected to reduce production costs and is forecasted to reduce the CO2 footprint of the carbon nanomaterials to below net-zero.
Carbonova’s technology consists of a catalyst process that converts not only carbon dioxide but also methane into carbon nanofibres. The process was developed by the company’s co-founders at the University of Alberta.
"Carbonova is on track to complete the front-end-engineering design of its first commercial demo unit; the new design will represent a significant scale-up from Carbonova's existing pilot facility," said Mina Zarabian, Carbonova's CEO and Co-Founder. "The new plant will generate multiple hundreds of kilograms of carbon nanomaterials per day. This amount is sufficient to generate thousands of tons of sustainable end products and serve dozens of customers to bring their own innovative sustainable products in different sectors to the market," she added.
The financing round was led by Kolon Industries, Korean chemical and textile manufacturing company. The $6 million in funding add to $2.5 million from Sustainable Development Technology Canada and the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program, secured in Feb. 2023.