Catalyst and sorbent manufacturers, this one is for you. That goes for companies in coatings, petrochemicals, carbon dioxide (CO2) capture, hydrogen (H2) storage, and cosmetics. A research team at KAUST may have revolutionized the fields of silica applications.
It is a new type of silica material combining uniform spherical shape with fibrous structure and providing new properties never seen in silica before. I’m talking about high surface area, excellent dispersion and surface accessibility, and robust mechanical and thermal stability.
It’s the patent-pending KCC-1: Fibrous Silica Nanosphere Technology, and it’s commercially viable and ready for testing and manufacturing.
KCC-1 came out of a completely new approach for making silica nanospheres. Rather than tinkering with mesoporous silica, KAUST’s researchers created a unique alternative shape totally new to silica. What you’re looking at in the picture to the right is a fibrous surface morphology arranged in a 3D structure. Unlike pore-based silica, the structure of these nanospheres dramatically increases accessibility to most of the available surface area, thereby significantly increasing catalytic activity. KCC-1’s high efficiency results in exceptional performance across a wide variety of commercial applications—including some that were impossible until now.
This isn’t just theory. Tests demonstrated that this technology outperformed current commercial silica-based systems (zeolites or other mesoporous materials) for many applications.
This superior performance isn’t surprising given KCC-1 specs:
- >650 m2/g surface area
- Up to 800 °C thermal stability
- Up to 216 MPa mechanical stability
- 0.18–0.19 bulk density
- 0.2 g/cm3 tapped density
KCC-1 also has excellent dispersion in aqueous and nonaqueous media.
If all of this sounds good, contact me to find out how to obtain a sample. KAUST has fast and flexible licensing practices that can make joint development, patent licensing, or other beneficial relationships a breeze for your company.
Fibrous Silica Nanospheres (KCC-1)
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