The Challenge
A global client needed to secure an industrial partner to produce fine powder carbon-based particles at ~1–10 T/year. The project required partners who possessed equipment capable of operating at high temperatures while maintaining gas tightness and resisting corrosion, as well as demonstrated experience with gas treatment systems.
Key challenges included:
- High-Temperature Operations: The production of industrial materials needs to run at temperatures between 550–700°C under sealed gas environments to achieve both operational control and safety standards.
- Strict Product Requirements: The product requirements are strict because they need to meet three essential criteria, which include particle size between 250–500 nm and maintaining both product consistency and production consistency at large manufacturing levels.
- Scalability: The organization needs to find partners who will help advance the pilot program into industrial production because they must have capabilities that go beyond laboratory work.
- Corrosive Environment: The system needs to handle corrosive/reactive gas streams which contain NH₃ at high levels while it produces products of consistent quality.
- Off-Gas Management: The process needs to handle significant gas production, which amounts to 50% of total mass, requiring a strong system for capturing and processing off-gases.
Our Role and Approach
The client needed Kepler to find international partners who would pass technical feasibility tests based on client requirements for choosing appropriate industrial partners to execute pilot and scale-up operations. The team completed the work through curated and specific workstreams:
- Market Research: The research used expert interviews together with market studies to determine the operations of the value chain and production techniques, vital business areas, and reliable market entities.
- Targeted Identification: Using Kepler’s internal databases and primary searches, the team contacted probable suppliers who were shortlisted based on primary criteria.
- Agile Follow-up: The follow-up schedule operated at 2–3 day intervals to achieve quick results for both response time measurements and qualification assessment evaluations.
- Technical Alignment: The partners needed to participate in scheduled technical deep-dive meetings, which helped obtain detailed briefs, achieve alignment, and verify their capabilities (equipment and process evidence).
- Scorecard Assessment: Developed a 6-criterion technical screening scorecard which assessed reactor performance, corrosion protection, humidity system integration, temperature maintenance, gas processing, and scale preparation capabilities.
- Business Matching: Shortlisted candidates had to undergo NDA agreements, after which direct business meetings with the client were scheduled to keep the partners motivated.
- Pilot Support: The team supported the selected partner in aligning 100% with the client’s production requirements and delivered a pilot batch production sample for further testing.
The Result
- A market report on “Carbon black” gave the client an overview of market dynamics, helping them make informed decisions on various topics advised by Kepler.
- 4 final recommended candidates proceeded with NDA and next-step discussions.
- Validated pilot plant facilities and guided the team for batch production of 1 kg samples.
- Innovative carbon-based fine particle successfully produced for cosmetic integration.
