Initial production scale is expected to be 1,000 tonnes (1 million kg.) per year of CNTs beginning in 2016.

"We are pleased to begin our collaboration with SWeNT and SCIP, and are optimistic about the implementation of this project in the Azerbaijan Republic,” said Rovshan Najaf, Executive Director of AIC.

"The market for CNTs is expected to grow very rapidly over the next decade,” said David Arthur, CEO of SWeNT. "A state-of-the-art production facility at Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park will greatly expand our capacity to deliver SWeNT® CNT products to customers worldwide.”

 

"SWeNT is a leader in high quality carbon nanotubes manufacturing and applications,” said Nazim Talibov, Acting Director of SCIP. "We are excited about the opportunity to establish a world class CNT production operation at Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park.” 

CNTs are advanced nanomaterials that can enable groundbreaking new applications in many industries including plastics, elastomers, textiles, coatings, construction materials, batteries, supercapacitors, printed electronics, sensors, memory devices and medical applications. CNTs are extremely stable materials and are considered one of the strongest materials known. They self-assemble into robust networks that maintain electrical conductivity even after significant stretching. CNTs conduct electricity and heat better than copper and are superior semiconductors than silicon at nanoscale.

SWeNT, established in 2001 as a spin-off of the University of Oklahoma and NASA, has become a leading developer and manufacturer of single-wall, few-wall and multi-wall CNTs. SWeNT® CNTs are used by more than 1,000 customers worldwide in industries ranging from consumer electronics to energy storage and composite manufacturing.

The combination of SWeNT’s patented CoMoCAT® catalyst technology and its Catalytic Chemical Vapor Deposition (CCVD) / fluidized bed reactor platform results in the world’s most selective and scalable synthesis for CNTs.

Investors in SWeNT currently include Insight Technology Capital Partners, Panasonic Ventures, Itochu Plastics, Counter Point Ventures, Berwind Private Equity, Novus Capital and SOS Ventures of Dublin, Ireland.

AIC is a state-owned equity investment firm established in 2006 to support development in the non-oil sector of the national economy via termed-equity injections in partnership with local and foreign investors. AIC manages quite a diverse portfolio of non-hydrocarbon projects with the overall value currently standing at over $1.1 billion. 

Integration of new technologies and know-how and promotion of modernization, innovation, and competitiveness are among the priority objectives of AIC, as well as contributing to the development of the capital markets, and identifying investment opportunities for foreign and local investors.

SCIP was established in 2011 to serve a very specific task of development of a competitive industrial production facility based on advanced technologies to become a major chemical industrial center for the region at large.

Occupying a thoroughly developed territory of 730 acres (296 hectares), SCIP will be offering turn-key facilities for production and manufacturing, laboratories and office blocks, a vocational training school, exhibition and conference centers, a logistics center and other facilities, which will be operated on a one-stop-shop basis. Businesses operating within SCIP will benefit from a seven-year tax exemption applied to their property, land, corporate income and VAT on imported equipment.