CRANN and Thomas Swan sign industrial partnership

CRANN, the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) funded nanoscience institute based at Trinity College Dublin, has announced a new collaborative research partnership worth €750,000 with Thomas Swan & Co Ltd, a leading independent manufacturer of performance and speciality chemicals based in the north east of England. The collaboration will focus on the industrial scale-up of graphene production, a material with potential applications in next generation electronic devices, mechanically strengthened plastics and new thermoelectric materials. Graphene is the focus of one of six of the EU’s FET Flagship Pilot research projects, two of which will be chosen to receive funding of €1 billion for 10 years from the EU Commission.

CRANN’s research in the field of graphene production is led by Professor Jonathan Coleman, who was named as SFI Researcher of the Year in 2011 and is also recognised as one of the top 100 material scientists of the last decade – the only Irish representative on the list. There is currently no method to produce high quality pure graphene on an industrial scale and the collaboration between CRANN and Thomas Swan aims to address this problem. In addition to funding the research programme, Thomas Swan will also place an engineer to work with Professor Coleman’s team for two years.

Commenting on the partnership, Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, Executive Director of CRANN, said, “This collaborative research programme with Thomas Swan underlines the strength of our industry engagement programme, which is bringing significant non-exchequer funding into CRANN and research in Ireland. It clearly demonstrates how CRANN has become a global focus point for both academic and industrial partnership. This international success has been built on the back of continuous funding for research excellence from the Irish State through Science Foundation Ireland.”