News & Intelligence

The U.S. Department of Energy has allocated $500 million to strengthen domestic processing and manufacturing of critical battery materials, aiming to reduce foreign supply chain reliance by 15% by 2030.

Researchers and industry leaders in Jakarta urge converting Palm Oil Mill Effluent into biogas. Indonesia's vast effluent pool remains largely untapped due to a lack of binding regulations.

HydroGraph Clean Power Inc. opened its Texas headquarters in Austin, featuring a facility capable of producing 30 tons of pristine graphene annually. Congressman John Carter attended the event.

The federal government is providing $7 million to the Capital Regional District for a biosolids project on Vancouver Island, transforming wastewater treatment leftovers into biochar.

Researchers at the World Resources Institute report that current global CO₂ removal capacity is insufficient to meet the 2030 target of one billion tonnes, with technologies like Direct Air Capture and biochar facing high costs and scalability challenges. This shortfall impacts the advanced carbon materials sector, as these technologies are crucial for achieving net-negative emissions and supporting the sustainable use of biochar and other carbon-based solutions.

The RM of Ritchot has signed a memorandum of understanding with a biochar manufacturer to extend its landfill operations. This partnership could enhance the use of biochar in waste management, potentially improving sustainability and generating economic benefits.

The Government of Québec has announced its Plan de gestion intégrée des ressources énergétiques (PGIRE), committing $87 billion over 25 years to boost renewable energy, including forest bioenergy. This investment could significantly advance the production of renewable natural gas and biocarbon, both critical for decarbonizing industries reliant on carbon-based fuels.

India has launched the National Critical Mineral Mission with a budget of 343 billion rupees to boost domestic graphite mining and reduce import dependency by 2031. This initiative is crucial for securing a stable supply of graphite, an essential material for electric vehicle batteries and other clean energy technologies, as India aims to meet its ambitious climate goals.

Bakkafrost Scotland showcased its Applecross recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) facility during a visit by Scotland’s marine minister, highlighting its strategy of rearing salmon longer in freshwater conditions. The facility plans to install pyrolysis technology to convert hatchery waste into biochar, aligning with efforts to reduce environmental impact and enhance sustainability in aquaculture.

Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu announced that biochar plants under construction in Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh, will contribute to earning carbon credits and creating employment. This development is significant for the biochar sector as it highlights the potential of biochar to support sustainable economic growth and carbon management.

South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT rated four of its 14 Small-scale R&D Zones—Seoul Hongneung, Pohang, Incheon Seo-gu, and Jinju—as "Excellent" in the 2025 annual evaluation, with Pohang's zone directing roughly 11 billion won toward Graphene Square and POSTECH to build the world's first mass-production plant for graphene film. The Pohang result signals growing state-backed infrastructure for scaling graphene manufacturing, a persistent bottleneck for the advanced carbon materials sector.

Cal Poly Pomona's College of Engineering received a $198,100 grant from the DENSO North America Foundation to fund advanced manufacturing equipment, including a large-scale carbon fiber 3D printer and an industrial multi-material printer, for student use. The addition of industrial-grade carbon fiber 3D printing at the undergraduate level expands hands-on access to composite fabrication technology that is otherwise largely confined to professional industry settings.

OCSiAl has been named a single-wall carbon nanotube supplier to Volkswagen Group's battery subsidiary PowerCo for its Unified Cell platform, with supply coming from OCSiAl's audited production facility in Serbia. The deal extends single-wall carbon nanotube use into a major European automaker's standardized battery platform, where the material serves as a conductive additive in graphite anodes to improve conductivity, heat dissipation, and fast-charging performance.

PowerCo, Volkswagen Group's battery subsidiary, selected OCSiAl to supply TUBALL single-wall carbon nanotube additives for the graphite anodes of its Unified Cell platform, manufactured at OCSiAl's Serbia facility. The deal expands the role of single-wall carbon nanotubes in large-scale EV battery production, with OCSiAl now supplying the majority of European EV battery manufacturers and planning a $300 million graphene nanotube facility in Luxembourg.

Marstrom Composite AB, a subsidiary of Scandinavian Astor Group, signed a five-year framework agreement worth approximately SEK 100 million with an undisclosed western defence company to supply structural composite components. The deal provides a long-term revenue base for Marstrom's carbon fibre composites business and signals growing demand for advanced composite structural parts in western defence programmes.

Bolder Industries received final permits on 15 June 2025 to build an 86ktpa end-of-life tire pyrolysis facility at the Port of Antwerp-Bruges, to be developed in two phases with EU Innovation Fund co-funding. The plant will supply recovered carbon black at commercial scale to European markets, adding to Bolder's existing US operations in Missouri and Indiana.

The EU-funded HOOP project helped eight European cities and regions mobilise EUR 124 million to convert urban biowaste into circular bioeconomy outputs including biochar, biogas, bioplastics, and agricultural nutrients. Biochar production via pyrolysis emerged as a replicable pathway across multiple territories, with Kuopio (Finland) establishing an operational pilot plant and Münster (Germany) confirming technical feasibility, signaling growing municipal-scale demand for pyrolysis infrastructure relevant to the biochar sector.

Alastair Collier, chief R&D officer of A Healthier Earth, argues in this op-ed that the carbon removal sector's primary obstacle is no longer technological but structural, citing fragmented credit markets, misaligned procurement timelines, and the absence of durable policy frameworks as the core barriers to scale. For the biochar and broader CDR industry, the piece highlights that integrating high-integrity removals into mechanisms like the UK and EU ETS could provide the long-term demand signals and price certainty needed to move projects from pilots to industrial-scale infrastructure.

The Advanced Carbons Council published a position paper in May 2026 arguing that carbon credit financing should be redirected from geological carbon capture and sequestration toward conversion of captured carbon into advanced materials such as graphene, carbon fiber, biochar, and carbon nanotubes. The paper contends that carbon-to-materials conversion projects are commercially self-sustaining without ongoing subsidies, unlike CCS, and deliver compounding lifecycle emissions reductions across sectors including construction, aerospace, agriculture, and energy storage.

NeoGraf commissioned a new production line at its Lakewood, Ohio facility, adding 2,000 tonnes per annum of flexible graphite sheet capacity funded by a $38 million investment, bringing its total to 11,000 tonnes per annum. The expansion increases domestic supply of high-purity exfoliated graphite sheets for EV battery thermal management, where the material's in-plane thermal conductivity above 600 W/m·K at low density addresses a critical requirement for North American automotive manufacturers.

SK On signed a five-year, $180 million supply contract with Hansolchemical for 4,500 tonnes per annum of graphene additive for NCM811 cathodes, with shipments starting Q1 2027. The deal signals growing industrial-scale demand for graphene as a functional cathode additive in EV batteries, and will require Hansolchemical to expand its Gumi facility beyond its current 1,200 tonne per annum capacity.

After a decade of overpromising, commercial traction in coatings, concrete and batteries suggests graphene's scale-up story is becoming credible.