Carbon plant

Seattle-based EnerG2 has been awarded $21.3m (£12.8m) in funding from the US Department of Energy, which it plans to use to help it build a facility to produce nano-engineered synthetic carbon electrode materials.

EnerG2 will partner with Oregon Freeze Dry, one of its existing manufacturing partners, in the construction of the new plant, which will be located in Albany, Oregon.

Working in collaboration with the University of Washington's Department of Materials Science and  Engineering, EnerG2 has developed unique sol-gel processing technologies to help it make the carbon materials. The materials are extremely conductive and are attractive to electrolytic ions, methane, natural gas and hydrogen.

Sol-gel processing is a chemical synthesis that gels colloidal suspensions to form solids through heat and catalysts. EnerG2 has invented a means to control the hydrolysis and condensation reactions within the gelling process, allowing the materials' surface structures and pore-size distributions to be shaped, moulded and customised for a variety of energy-storage uses.