Optimizing Carbon Nanomaterial Systems for Commercial Applications (Graphene LIVE! Europe 2014)

Solvent-based exfoliation of nanomaterials provides simple, scalable, cost-effective routes for producing commercially useful quantities of a range of nanomaterials in the form of highly exfoliated solvent dispersions. The dispersions can in turn be used to deliver active nanomaterials into and onto many different commercial application targets. Polymer nanocomposites exhibiting enhanced mechanical, electrical and barrier properties have been a primary area of research and development at Xolve. The ability to cost-effectively exfoliate different types of nanomaterials and produce co-exfoliated mixtures containing more than one type of nanomaterial in an interactive system has opened up exciting new possibilities to optimize polymer nanocomposites for specific types of commercial applications. Using this approach, Xolve has produced new mixed nanomaterial polymer composites with unique performance properties compared to those based on a single type of nanomaterial.

Dr. Clauss holds a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from University of Illinois. He is an experienced industrial chemist and manager of research and development. He was employed by The Procter and Gamble Company for 18 years where he worked in a wide range of technology areas spanning all disciplines of chemistry, and served as a senior R&D manager. In addition to other achievements, Dr. Clauss played a lead role in establishing two of P&G's R&D centers in China. From 2000 to 2011, Dr. Clauss served as Director of Organic Chemistry Instructional Laboratories and Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently Vice President, R&D, for Xolve Inc. Dr. Clauss has authored numerous scientific publications and is an inventor on eight U.S. patents.

Xolve, Inc. is an advanced materials company with proprietary technology for the exfoliation and dispersion of a wide range of nanomaterials. The Company's first products are low cost graphene/polymer masterbatches that deliver price-performance previously thought impossible. Xolve technology offers the lowest-cost production of the world's most active form of carbon, graphene, and its effective dispersion for customers into various forms of masterbatches to deliver attractive price-performance properties. Xolve's stated goal is to fundamentally disrupt many of the world's polymer composite and energy storage materials markets in which nanomaterials were thought to be unfeasible due to price-performance constraints. Xolve has filed many patent applications on its technology and is involved in several developmental programs for polymer nanocomposites and energy storage, which validate both its technical capabilities and business model. Xolve is scaling from its graphene process from pilot to commercial production and seeks commercial partners to develop and introduce high performance graphene containing products.