LOOP, a patent technology by the British climate tech firm Levidian, captures the carbon from methane gas before it is burned and turns it into clean hydrogen and high-quality graphene, a nanomaterial used as an additive to unlock product performance and drive process efficiencies.
The technology can be deployed anywhere with a methane source. It is designed to function as a self-contained modular system that can quickly and easily be retrofitted to existing infrastructure.
“This means it can be installed in a range of carbon-intensive facilities, including oil and gas sites, waste management facilities, agricultural businesses, or even wastewater processing plants,” said Colin Elcoate, MENA Managing Director, Levidian in an interview with Decarbonisation News.
Levidian is a British climate tech business that is on a mission to decarbonise the world’s hardest to abate sectors. Their technology LOOP technology, they provides a comprehensive decarbonisation service for their customers that converts carbon liabilities into a competitive advantage, solving the dilemma between decarbonisation and business performance.
They are currently working with some of the world’s largest companies across a variety of industries. For example, we’re working with Tadweer on a first-of-its-kind pilot that aims to tackle methane emissions from one of Abu Dhabi’s largest landfill sites.
This LOOP device is estimated to reduce emissions by around 40%, while supporting further upstream carbon savings through the addition of graphene to enhance the performance of materials like concrete, batteries and polymers. If successful, the project could be scaled to process an estimated 1.2 billion cubic metres of landfill gas over the next 10 years.
How does Levidian help industries in their decarbonisation journey?
In a world where hard-to-abate sectors continue to contribute over 30% of global emissions, there is an urgent need to support businesses that either rely on carbon intensive processes or for whom methane is a by-product of their operations. Carbon capture and storage looks like an obvious solution for many high emitters, but current technologies are either too expensive to be viable or not yet ready, and storage at scale is limited to offshore storage sites, potentially hundreds of miles away.
Levidian’s LOOP addresses this issue by turning captured carbon into materials that are critical for the clean energy transition. A major benefit of LOOP is the significant revenues that can be achieved through the production and utilisation of high-value hydrogen and graphene, which can ensure that the project pays for itself and more – something that cannot be said for other CCUS technologies.
We’re also helping the hydrogen industry as it continues to look for ways to scale up production sufficiently so it can become a credible, sustainable part of the future energy landscape. Our industrial-scale LOOP1000 will deliver the lowest cost clean hydrogen in the world thanks to the production of graphene, and earlier this year, we broke through the green hydrogen production efficiency benchmark of 50kWh/kg, exceeding the efficiency of electrolysers for the first time. We expect to improve production efficiency by around a further 50% to 25kWh/kg within the next 18 months, putting us well ahead of alternative green hydrogen producers anywhere in the world.
Which industries are more likely to benefit from your technology?
All kinds of industries can benefit from Levidian’s technology. We’re already working with companies in hard-to-abate industries across the globe including wastewater treatment, landfill and oil & gas, and – most recently – agriculture.
Just last week, we announced that we’ve partnered with clean hydrogen firm Hexla to deploy our LOOP technology at a farm in Somerset (UK) where it will capture the carbon from biomethane and produce over 4 tonnes of hydrogen per year – enough to power around 240,000 miles in a hydrogen vehicle.
Globally, agriculture is the largest contributor to man-made methane emissions, with most of this methane coming from livestock. Levidian’s LOOP isn’t just capable of helping tackle agriculture’s methane problem, it can create circular systems. By using the hydrogen created by LOOP, it can power fuel cell electric vehicles, and the graphene can be used to create stronger and longer-lasting car parts, such as paint and tyres.
How does Levidian integrate sustainability and environmental considerations into its core business model?
Sustainability and decarbonisation are at the core of everything we do. Concerns around carbon capture and storage, including the risk of leakage, can be solved by technology that focuses on putting captured carbon to use to further decarbonise industries.
Since its discovery in 2004, the graphene market has been constrained by problems with consistency and scale, with the majority of graphene coming from graphite mining – a practice that not only has a high environmental impact but does not maintain the same quality of graphene from one batch to the next. LOOP overcomes both these issues by turning a potent greenhouse gas into consistently high-quality net-zero graphene, which has the potential to be carbon-negative depending on the make-up of the local grid.
Just a few grams of Levidian graphene, which has been certified by the Graphene Council, can make a batch of concrete 30% stronger and deliver a 200% faster cure. In batteries, graphene can deliver about 20% more energy density, speed up charging by up to 30%, and increase lifespan by up to 27%, meaning EVs go further, charge faster and last longer.
Tell us about your partnerships in the UAE? And what do you bring to the market here in UAE?
We’re proud to have the support of Mubadala as an investor and announced in November 2023 our intention to establish a new base in Abu Dhabi – our first outside of the UK. We plan to open our first global Regional Delivery Centre (RDC) in 2025, which will serve as a central hub and showcase for MENA, placing Abu Dhabi at the heart of our business in the region and creating around 250 jobs in manufacturing and R&D.
We’re targeting $2bn+ of business revenues by 2030 and believe our technology has the potential to unlock huge opportunities for the UAE to drive down its emissions, while producing millions of tonnes of clean hydrogen and graphene each and every year. We also believe that the establishment of the RDC in Abu Dhabi offers an exciting opportunity for the UAE as an exporter of world-leading cleantech.
We also have a number of partnerships in the region. Our LOOP technology will be deployed to decarbonise gas processing as part of a strategic collaboration between ADNOC and Baker Hughes and are working with Tadweer on a first-of-its-kind pilot that aims to tackle methane emissions from one of Abu Dhabi’s largest landfill sites. We also have a fully functioning LOOP at the RIC-2D centre at Khalifa University, which is located within the Arzanah Complex at the university’s Sas Al Nakhl (SAN) Campus, in Abu Dhabi.
What advice would you give to other companies working on decarbonisation solutions?
This is a new and exciting market and working in true partnership with customers on feasibility studies and pilot projects before scaling is key. Adoption of new technologies in these established markets is always a challenge and both parties need to share the risk and reward.
It’s also important to listen and respond to the vision of a country and/or a customer/industry. The Middle East is rich with natural and financial resource – all countries have clear strategic vision and strong leadership and, for those that embrace this environment, the potential is huge.
It’s also clear that while decarbonisation alone is interesting, the real results come when combined with concrete action around localisation of world class skills and technology, solutions and products with AI designed at the core and a long-term aligned strategy. Be brave and be ambitious!
