Avanzare consolidates industrial leadership with a new graphene composites plant

Graphene Flagship partner Avanzare, Spain, started as a small SME a few years ago. Now, they have purchased a second production plant to become one of the world’s leading graphene manufacturers, expanding its capabilities to different graphene-enabled composites, mixtures and intermediates.

With the new acquisition, Avanzare will count on over 30.000 sqm of facilities, positioning them as frontrunners in the European market. This additional space has also enabled the growth of the company, which now employs 5 times more people and has increased its billings by tenfold compared to the start of the Graphene Flagship.

“The Graphene Flagship has played a key role in this success story,” explains Julio Gómez Cordón, CEO and Co-founder of Avanzare. “This EU-funded project become a source of several collaborations and partnerships, all of which have supported and motivated our enthusiasm in the last decade. Our growth has been in parallel with the advance of the Graphene Flagship, in 2013 we started with a 2.000 m² plant and now we have over 30.000 m² and a compound annual growth rate of over 35%”

In fact, Avanzare’s new plant will exploit one of the company’s patents, envisioned, drafted and filed during the previous funding phase of the Graphene Flagship. This technology allows the in-situ exfoliation of graphite into graphene flakes, then incorporated into different preparations used by leading industries worldwide. “Our products, including intermediates and ultraconcentrates, increase the stability and usability of graphene and layered materials, providing ready-made solutions to the industry” says Gómez Cordón. “International experts have defined them as a guarantee of success, therefore an important step to achieve the Graphene Flagship’s goal – pushing industrialisation and putting graphene-enabled products in the market.”

Graphene intermediates have become the go-to alternative in industry, explains Avanzare, because they enable the transportation, storage and proper preservation of graphene and layered materials. It’s literally a graphene solution: an integrated mixture of layered materials into stable matrices, such as solvents, resins, polymers and other masterbatches. Specialised feedstocks and formulations enable industry to easily integrate graphene into their manufacturing lines, making the most of properties like electrical conductivity, mechanical resistance, lightweight and more.

“Within the Graphene Flagship, we established strong collaborations with tens of partners, and benefited our growth from the full value chains defined in the different Work Packages. The possibility to study different applications from very low TRLs and have stable networks of collaboration and sufficient time to achieve higher TRLs, produce prototypes, eventually allowed us to achieve to market several applications,” adds Gómez Cordón.

Alex Jouvray, Work Package Leader for Industrialisation, said: “Avanzare has been instrumental in the development of numerous new and exciting applications using graphene and related materials. Within the Graphene Flagship project, they have consistently delivered high quality high volume of new materials to all partners and these materials have been tested and qualified to the highest standards. Avanzare’s knowledge of this industry has been a real asset to the Flagship as their expert advice and guidance enabled numerous project partners to develop and commercialise new applications and products.”

Kari Hjelt, the Graphene Flagship Head of Innovation, added: “The recent development by Avanzare shows the power of collaboration enabled by the Graphene Flagship. We are now rapidly moving forward in creating a graphene ecosystem and building the necessary value chain paving the road for taking graphene from laboratories to products.”