Staff at Promethean Particles showed Lilian Greenwood, MP for Nottingham South and Minister for the Future of Roads, around its laboratory and its manufacturing facility at Genesis Park, Midland Way.
Her visit came just days after the firm announced that it had received £8m of private investment to enable it to scale up its production of materials called MOFs, which stands for metal-organic frameworks.
MOFs are tiny crystalline structures which have huge internal surface areas and act like tiny sponges or sieves. They are capable of capturing and storing vast quantities of gas and liquid molecules, where one teaspoon of these incredible materials has the equivalent surface area of two tennis courts.
One such gas the Promethean team is targeting is carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the most prevalent greenhouse gases scientists have shown is responsible for global warming. The use of MOFs could offer a viable solution to the problem of CO2 being released into the atmosphere in gas emissions created while burning fuels.
Innovations such as MOFs offer power generators and other hard-to-abate industries a new way to reduce their carbon emissions, and Promethean Particles is trialling a demonstration carbon capture unit at Drax Group’s power station in Selby, Yorkshire.
“Lilian was very interested to hear about our work in developing MOFs for applications such as carbon capture, and how our investment will enable us to manufacture MOFs in large enough quantities for them to be utilised on an industrial scale,” said James Stephenson, chief executive officer at Promethean Particles.
“A lack of scalability has held back the potential of MOFs, but, thanks to our innovation and recent funding, we are in a position where we can make them available and affordable to a range of emitters seeking to capture their CO2, as well as for other applications such as harvesting water.
“She was clearly impressed with what we are doing here and glad to learn of our growth plans that will create new jobs in her constituency. It was refreshing to see that she was also keen to understand how, as our MP, she can help us address some of the challenges many small, innovative firms like Promethean face that can limit our growth trajectory, such as the skills gap and over-burdensome regulation.”
Promethean Particles, has already started to put its new funding to work, and is looking forward to expanding its team of 11 with five new staff scheduled to start in September. It will also use its investment to eventually move to larger premises and build larger demonstration prototypes to showcase its products to potential customers.
Lilian said of her visit: “I greatly enjoyed my inspirational visit to Promethean Particles, just one of a number of cutting-edge manufacturing companies founded and thriving in Nottingham. I pay tribute to the incredible staff at Promethean Particles as they turn science fiction into science fact.
“I will only be too happy to continue to support the company as the Member of Parliament for Nottingham South, as it continues to grow and contribute to our local and national economy.”
