A Teesside graphene manufacturer has had its ‘wonder material’ applied to a North East flood defence.
Applied Graphene Materials (AGM), based at Wilton on Teesside, manufactures super strong graphene which can be added to paints, coatings and composite materials to improve their sustainability.
Now England’s Environment Agency has successfully completed its first application of Applied Graphene Material’s harsh environment anti-corrosion product to a flood defence asset on the North East coast.
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The coastal flood defence gates were coated with AGM’s new graphene enhanced Genable CX-based anti-corrosion primer.
The coating system forms part of the company’s products for barrier performance and anti-corrosion application, and represents the culmination of 18 months of in-depth testing and evaluation of anti-corrosion performance for both salt-spray and immersion in harsh test regimes.
The company said the Environment Agency project marks a “major milestone in customer exploitation of AGM’s graphene-enhanced coatings systems for corrosion protection in harsh coastal environments” and is the first of several planned applications of the system.
Adrian Potts, CEO, said: “After many years of product development and rigorous testing of example graphene formulations for a range of increasingly harsh corrosion environments, it is extremely gratifying to see the successful application of these coatings in harsh coastal and sea spray conditions.
“I am excited by the opportunity to engage with England’s Environment Agency and look forward to wider use of our products on further EA assets, as well as deeper engagement with them as an innovative solution provider.
“Being based in the North East and seeing our products used locally is also testament to local innovation and the excellent platform of graphene R&D which AGM has developed in the region.”
John Abraham of England’s Environment Agency said: “The EA has set itself an ambitious target of being a Carbon Net Zero Organisation by 2030. We must innovate and engage with companies that are developing the materials and technologies of tomorrow, if we are to meet this ambition.
"One area the EA is looking at, is how to lengthen the maintenance intervals on our Flood Risk Management Assets, which will reduce our carbon footprint in maintenance activities.
“We have welcomed the opportunity, to engage with AGM, who have supplied us with their new advanced graphene primer, that was used in December 2021 on one of our Flood Risk Management Assets.
“We look forward to working with AGM, for further trials in 2022 of this interesting and innovative product, within a range of real world environments.”
