Graphite, an essential part of the battery necessary for EVs, makes up about half of a typical battery. As demand for EVs is expected to grow significantly, raw material supply chains cannot keep up. With 95% of graphite being sourced from China, global battery manufacturers face significant geopolitical and supply chain risks. While it is important to address these challenges, solutions that combine scalability, cost-efficiency, and performance are scarce to non-existent. This is where CarbonX comes into the picture as it is all set to disrupt the battery industry with a new anode material.
Now, the Dutch startup has been awarded the prestigious EIC Accelerator grant, marking a significant milestone in its mission to revolutionise active anode material supply in Europe. This follows the €4 million funding secured last year.
The awarded blended finance includes a €2.5 million grant and €5 million equity package to accelerate product development and market expansion, solidifying the company’s role in replacing graphite in Europe within the automotive battery green technology sector.
Talking with TFN, Rutger Van Raalten, CEO and co-founder of CarbonX said: “With this latest grant funding, the company has raised a total investment of €21 million from top investors like Innovation Industries (EUR 500m Deep Tech fund), Innovation Quarters (Regional investor) and Borski Fund (Diversity investor).”
Commenting on upcoming plans: “The team is expected to grow from 15 to 25 FTE in the next 9 months. Upon securing a supply agreement the company will kick-off a EUR 30m funding round to execute on those orders,” added Rutger.
How was the idea born?
CarbonX was founded by Rutger Van Raalten and Daniela Sordi in 2014. Rutger Van Raalten was part of the team inventing the material technology at Delft University of Technology in 2007. With a MSc-degree in Chemical process engineering and now more than 15 years of experience as a deeptech entrepreneur, I’ve led the commercial scale-up in existing carbon black manufacturing plants across 3 facilities in the US and China.
Daniela Sordi has more than 17 years of experience working with nanomaterials across a variety of industries. She recently built and commissioned our 400 m2 battery testing facility and is originator of CarbonX’s 11 globally filed patent families
Steen McCollin joined the company, 5 months ago from Nexeon, where he was responsible for closing the largest deal with Panasonic. He has over 21 years of automotive experience coming from Jaguar Land Rover with vast knowledge on customer qualification, quality management and offtake agreements.
The founders met at Delft University of Technology after a Friday afternoon experiment, generating the first patent. Entering plastics and tire industry at first, the team developed a grade to replace graphite in the geopolitical tensed market for batteries
Direct alternative to Chinese graphite
It offers a locally produced carbon anode material that matches the cost of Chinese graphite, delivering fast-charge and enhanced battery lifetime at the face value of reduced carbon footprint. The company’s carbon anode material is currently undergoing late-stage qualifications with several top 10 global battery cell manufacturers.
CarbonX utilises a unique emulsion feedstock technology to produce a new carbon anode material equivalent to graphite. One of the key benefits of using this feedstock technology is that the entire production process consumes much less energy compared to synthetic or natural graphite production, resulting in lower cost and a reduced carbon footprint.
Rutger stated: “CarbonX is building Europe’s first fully independent supply chain for critical battery anode materials. We developed a direct alternative for Chinese graphite that is produced locally at full commercial scale, offering a drop-in material that reduces geopolitical dependencies.”
What makes CarbonX stand out?
On the competition front Rutger said: “Main competitors are synthetic graphite producers. Such producers require heavy CapEx intense factories that need to come online. They require high energy use, which is linked to high costs and CO2 emissions. CarbonX technology seamlessly integrates in existing carbon black facilities, which operate at much lower temperature. CO2 emissions are 5x lower, with contract manufacturing we have the ability to supply 10 ktpa already today while CapEx requirements for a new factory are 20x lower compared to synthetic graphite.”
He added: “CarbonX is the only solution available today that competes with Chinese graphite on cost, performance, sustainability and security-of-supply, all at the same time.”
