Spain’s Graphenano Steps Up Andean Presence

Graphenano has elevated its presence in the Colombian paint and coatings market with an exterior refurbishing of the Teatro Adolfo Mejía, located in Cartagena de Indias. The company is donating its proprietary Graphenstone coating, which is an elastic combination of graphene and limestone that absorbs airborne carbon dioxide and becomes rock hard.

Apart from the Mejía theater, Graphenano also has contracted to restore the summer Casa del Presidente, the Palacio de la Inquisición, and the Teatro Heredia, all in Cartegena. Elsewhere in the Andean region, the company indicates that it is actively targeting Bolivia, Chile and Peru for short term expansion.

In Chile, Graphenano recently put on a technical seminar with the Corporación de Desarrollo Tecnológico CDT de la Cámara Chilena de la Construcción, the technology development arm of the national construction association.

In Bolivia, Graphenano has donated Graphenstone for the refurbishment of the Unidad de Urgencias y Pediatría del Hospital de Oncología de Santa Cruz, the childrens’ cancer hospital. The company also has also agreed to help the Escuela Militar de Ingeniería, the national military school of engineering with its expansion plans.

A variety of paint companies have improved brand awareness in similar marketing projects in Brazil, Mexico and other countries, where historic buildings are restored in situations in which municipalities can not afford to the finance the project. Graphenano has already been involved in several high profile public projects in Europe, including the Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla.

The company’s Yecla, Murcia-based factory, which required investment of at least €200 million, is said to be capable of producing an estimated 2,000 pounds of graphene per day, according to varying reports from Spain. Comprised of 90 percent Spanish capital and 10 percent German capital, Graphenano has an R&D center located in Ciudad Real, at the University of Castilla La Mancha. The company has sales offices throughout Latin America.

Paint or coatings that include graphene layers can function as a structural component, including self-healing properties. Graphene can be as thin as one atom of carbon, arranged in a hexagonal-patterned blanket. It is also up to 200 times stronger than steel and conducts electricity better than copper, the company claims.

In the future, the company expects to produce solar sensitive graphene nanoparticles that can be applied to the surface of a building as a crude photovoltaic generator. Graphenano has “hundreds of R&D projects underway,” CEO Martín Martínez Rovira recently told Spain’s La Verdad newspaper, based in Murcia.

“Our formulas improve their properties exponentially – primarily by savings in material consumption, given that we operate at a nanometric scale, allowing us to achieve higher values of hardness, compressive and tensile strength, and elasticity than the ones obtained with any common coating,” the company suggestes. “These enhanced properties, added to weight reduction, allow improvements in total returns of equipment and facilities,” they added.

Graphene R&D in Europe is being supported by the Graphene Flagship, the EU’s biggest research initiative, with a budget of €1 billion. The 2013 initiate is coordinated by the Chalmers University of Technology, based in Gothenburg, Sweden. The initiative is tasked with bringing together academic and industrial researchers “to take graphene from the realm of academic laboratories into European society in the space of 10 years, generating economic growth, new jobs and new opportunities.”