Australia-based Imagine IM announced that Australia plans to become the first country to use graphene in the large scale manufacture of an industrial product; The company had entered into a licensing agreement with Australian geotextiles manufacturer, Geofabrics Australasia, and the insight gained from working with Geofabrics was key to the development of the graphene manufacturing solution. Geofabrics is scheduled to provide the marketplace with the first of its graphene-coated geotextile products in August 2016.
The agreement will see Geofabrics become the exclusive Australian licensee of Imagine IM's graphene coating technology for applications in geotextiles. Geofabrics will use the technology to offer Australian civil engineering companies significantly improved capacity to locate and remedy leaks with applications in landfill and mining construction.
The rising need to address water safety and conservation and the need for cost effective leak detection in the mining industry bring about various solutions, and Imagine IM estimates that its technology will save customers around 20-40% on their current solution costs. The company believes that its graphene coating technology has the potential to become a key element of the world's geotextiles industry; It has utilized graphene's electrical conductivity to provide the means to detect pin hole sized leaks in geotextiles.
Geofabrics' GM stated that the company believes that the bidim® geotextile with graphene coating is a 'game changer' for the geotextile industryas it will be a high tech solution at an extremely competitive price.
The agreement with Geofabrics follows Imagine IM's announcement last month that it has commenced development of a graphene manufacturing plant in North Geelong. The plant will commence production later this year and will supply its graphene solutions to Geofabrics. Imagine IM is in the process of developing additional products and solutions for the global geotextiles industry and is planning to migrate its platform technologies into other textile product lines where solving problems associated with water are highly valued. Imagine IM is also currently discussing international licensing agreements for its graphene technologies in the United States.