A company in Northeastern China has finished constructing a blending plant designed to make fluid lubricants formulated with graphene.
Sanrun Technology Co. is now commissioning equipment and plans soon to begin operating the plant, which has capacity to make 30,000 metric tons per year of lubricants, according to recent reports by the local government and Chinese news organizations.
The facility, dubbed Sanrun Graphene Lubricating Oil Project, was built in two years for ¥270 million (U.S. $40 million), according to a report posted by Jilin City, which has jurisdiction over the nearby city of Huadian, where the plant is located. Both are located in Jilin province, which borders North Korea.
The project received seed funding and other support from the Chongqing Institute of Graphene, which is located in the southwestern city of the same name, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which supported it because of the desire to commercialize graphene technology and to support economic development in Jilin province.
A subsidiary of Sanrun has been manufacturing lubricants containing graphene for a number of years in southern China, and the parent company wanted to establish a production base in the north. Sanrun officials said the project will employ 200 people and that they expect it to achieve annual sales revenue of ¥200 million.