Meet the entrepreneur who claims to have solved the shipping coatings challenge

Canadian entrepreneur Moe Algermozi has discovered a way to apply graphene to ships by putting it in a hull coating.

The result is a coating that is tough enough to withstand icy water, contains no biocides, minimizes hull growth, and is so smooth that it doesn’t reduce vessel performance, he said.

His startup company, Graphite Innovation & Technologies (GIT), spun off from graphite research he did at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia about a decade ago.

After discovering how to make his own graphene from graphite while studying materials engineering, he and co-founder Marciel Geier launched GIT to focus on the maritime industry.

The company now coats several ship hulls with his product and has moved to a larger office in Nova Scotia.

So why does Algermoji think he’s achieved something by mixing graphene into the ship’s hull coating?

Graphene and graphite are similar; both are pure carbon. However, they differ in many ways.

Graphite is naturally occurring and commonly used, but its planar, layered structure makes it brittle.

Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms in the form of a dense honeycomb lattice, making it extremely durable for its thickness. It also conducts heat and electricity well.

The discovery of how to make graphene in 2004 (search for “graphene tape test” online) not only led to physicists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov winning the Nobel Prize in 2010, but also led to the discovery of a powerful new wonder. This signaled the arrival of the materials. It withstood extreme temperature ranges and was extremely lightweight.

It was associated with applications ranging from space travel to microcomputing. A race has begun to produce it cheaply and in large quantities.

Scientists around the world worked to find a better way to mass-produce graphene. Two of them were researchers AlGermozi and Gaier, who teamed up at Dalhousie University in 2016.

“I was originally working on heating graphite to 3,000 degrees Celsius and noticed flakes coming out of the oven,” he told TradeWinds.

This was graphene. “That’s when my entrepreneurial instincts kicked in,” he said of the moment he realized he had a potential product.

Leveraging early funding, his early trials were conducted in Canada’s hydro energy market, coating the inside of pipelines to speed up the flow of water.

It was possible, but the business case didn’t exist. They realized there was a market for coating objects that moved through water, rather than objects that water passed through.

dragon’s den

Next came the work of growing the company and raising capital. “We went to places like the Dragon’s Den in Canada and met John Risley,” Aljamozi said. And this changed everything.

Risley is a Canadian billionaire who is actively investing in clean technology. He made millions by building a fishing and seafood empire. Therefore, some of the first vessels that GIT Coatings worked on were part of the fishing fleet.

Aljamozi said Risley understood the problem and had seen improvements in fuel consumption on these fishing vessels. Mr. Aljamozi also recalled that Mr. Risley once said that one of his ships had no damage to its coating when it passed through ice. That was the moment he knew his product was worth the additional investment.

“We knew even back then that we had two capabilities, and that’s appealing,” he added. They also point out that this coating technology has his third unique advantage. A graphene-based coating helped reduce underwater noise.

The GIT has two coatings and one propeller coating to reduce the possibility of cavitation. Cavitation is a process in which air bubbles form at the tip of a propeller, reducing thrust but producing noise.

According to Crunchbase, GIT has raised $12 million in funding and is expanding its market by focusing solely on the shipping industry. Oslo-listed chemical tanker operator Stolt Nielsen invested in the company in 2023 as part of a Series A funding round.

Restructuring the market

Since AlGermozi launched GIT in 2016, his attention was naturally drawn to the regulatory landscape, particularly efforts aimed at establishing limits for coating compositions.

Some self-polishing coatings have been criticized due to the risk of leaching chemicals, metals, and microplastics into the environment.

Some biocides are of concern because of the risks they pose to the natural environment.

There are also concerns about cleaning the hull. This is because this process often strips away not only the dirt but also the outer layer of the coating, leading to possible contamination of port waters.

And of course there is a connection between smooth hulls and vessel performance. Hull coating manufacturers will usually talk about the fuel savings of using their best-of-the-best products compared to their worst-case examples.

Hull coatings themselves do not save fuel. However, it prevents increased fuel consumption by preventing biofouling buildup and coating roughness from increasing over time.

All coatings are subject to reduced performance and damage from abrasions from tugs, pontoons, or underwater obstacles. A better coating will cure more slowly.

AlGermozi said his company currently paints more than 200 vessels, ranging from small fishing boats to one or two large commercial ships.

Stolt Nielsen has announced that it will coat its l25 vessels with a GIT solution, as has Eastern Pacific Shipping.

underwater noise

Regarding the cost of the application, AlGermozi said it is in the price range of a premium product.

But the coating doesn’t need to be applied as thickly as most other coatings, he said. In many other coatings he claims that only one layer coating is applied to the primer or base coating, rather than two or three layer coatings for graphene-based solutions.

It can be applied to containers in the same way as any other industrial coating, and GIT is working to make it as easy as possible.

Aljamozi believes they have a great product to help the shipping industry tackle issues such as invasive species problems caused by biofouling, and poor fuel performance due to poor hull coatings, but at the same time, there will be regulatory restrictions in the coming years. I think this will be the next big problem for authorities. , reduction of underwater radiated noise.

This is a very important topic in Canada’s oceans agenda because it impacts the country’s whale population.