Nanotubes from Siberia 'can massively reduce greenhouse gas emissions'

Some 28% of total greenhouse gas emissions ste the result of  production of traditional materials, such as steel, cement, paper, aluminium and plastics, said Anatoly Chubais.

Yet the use of single-walled carbon nanotubes lower the consumption of materials in production and thus reduces emissions. Now OCSiAl, a portfolio company of Rosnano, has created the world's first industrial production technology of single-walled carbon nanotubes, he said. 

The unique technology of synthesis of single-walled carbon nanotubes, which can be used as an additive for most materials, was developed in Russia at production plant Graphetron 1.0, created and launched in Novosibirsk's university and research satellite Akademgorodok. 

Nanotechnology allows 'a radical improvement in the basic, physical, electrical properties of the material. Classic materials with the additives like carbon nanotubes, are many times stronger,  increasing their conductivity ten times,' he said. But 'mass use' needed industrial scale production, and this is the breakthrough in Siberia. 

'We argue that we managed to get the world's first industrial production technology of single-walled nanotubes, enabling them to cost about 75 times lower than existing analogues,' he said. 

'It was created by Novosibirsk company OCSiAl. In the past year were made 200 kg of nanotubes.  This year will be about one ton, and in the next two - three years it is planned to reach an annual level of 30 - 40 tons. For reference - the global market last year, offered only two tons.'

Chubais said that 'our calculations show that if the rate of use of materials with nano-additive grows as we expect - and we have a fairly conservative assumptions - by 2030, the volume of emission reductions from this factor will be equal to, or greater than, reducing the volume of emissions from the use of all renewable energy in the world.' 

OCSiAl have published a 'Manifesto of the Carbon Century' where they argue  for the production of more effective materials. Nanotubes when added to the basic materials - metals, cement, ceramics, polymers, electrode materials of batteries and solar batteries, paint, coatings, and glass - make them stronger, more stable, and non-toxic.

Chubais - formerly a senior politician and Kremlin official - spoke during his participation in the International Forum of Science and Technology in Society (STS Forum) in Kyoto and Innovation for Cool Earth (ICEF) in Tokyo.