You're listening to the Decarbonization Dialogue,
a podcast from Salix. Welcome to the Decarbonization
Dialogue. I'm Hannah Walker, and I believe that
the best way to communicate a message is by being
passionate about what you are talking about.
With me today, I have Mohammed Khan and Professor
David Fai. They are both chief executive officer
and founder. of a material which develops advanced
material engineering solutions primarily centered
on metal organic frameworks. for applications
such as carbon capture, hydrogen storage, and
gas separation. As CEO, Mohammad has transformed
a range of businesses from energy, chemicals,
water, and other industrial markets. For more
than 27 years, he has worked on technology, commercialization,
creating enterprise value, and building partnerships.
He has operated in most industrial geographies
across the world. David leads the development.
of the fundamental technology and he is also
Royal Society University research fellow and
reader in molecular engineering in the department
of chemical engineering at the University of
Cambridge where he leads the absorption and advanced
material laboratory. Now that's quite a lot today
and I've got two fantastic guests and I'm really
looking forward to learning more about immaterial,
which is all I believe about carbon capture and
hydrogen storage. And I will emphasize at this
point that I am not an engineer, and I'm not
a scientist, and many of our listeners are not
either. So I'm hoping that we're able to put
a lot of this into a very simple language for
all of us. But let's start by asking you actually,
both Mohabbat and David, about your backgrounds.
Is this where you imagined you would be. Let's
start with Mohamed, because you are the CEO and
founder. Thank you, Hannah. Thank you for having
us on the podcast. Pleasure to be here. Inspiration,
I think, is from a number of directions. I'm
an engineer by background, so I wanted to build
things. And that's essentially how my career
has evolved. It's been building, taking on enormous
challenges. and creating something that's of
significance and value to society and industry
and customers at large. So that's really where
I draw my inspiration. I guess the other aspect
is working alongside very talented individuals
and creating the sum of the parts which is greater
than the individual parts and really seeing people
shine is also something I draw deep satisfaction
from. And David, how about you? I'm a scientist.
I'm a chemist. I started working in the Department
of Chemical Engineering in Cambridge. The motivation
has been always about how we can really create
new ideas. As a scientist, I'm curious about
finding new materials, new approaches, new solutions
to existing problems, and having the opportunity
to really jump from an academic publication.
where a few people will read it and will understand
what we are doing. Into a real company where
we have a real translational work, where we can
really have an impact, we can improve the quality
of life of the humanity of all the people. That's
quite important, okay? And that was the decision,
first of all, to really jump into material as
a company. And as Mohamed said, All this is thanks
to very bright people working around this technology,
more than just one idea from the lab. So let's
talk about immaterial from this company that
you've founded. What big climate problem, and
we're talking all about climate today, is immaterial
trying to solve? And how do your different roles,
science and business, work together to tackle
it? I'm going to take that to Mohamed, please.
Our primary focus obviously is in decarbonizing
industry and that's essentially helping industry
capture carbon economically and cost -effectively.
So we're really tackling two challenges. One
is the environmental challenge where the temperature
of the Earth, the planet is actually rising and
therefore developing these solutions will enable
a slowdown or a stoppage of that temperature,
but it's bringing economically viable solutions
to the marketplace. that will enable that to
be delivered. And secondly, with that environmental
challenge around the climate is solving the financial
puzzle. It is an enormous financial puzzle because
in order to address the climate problems and
deliver solutions, we need economically viable
solutions that are actually affordable, that
can be easily scaled and can be easily rolled
out. And that's really where the business at
Immaterial is focused. So it's very much looking
at how we can actually bring to bear our technology,
how that can be developed, expanded, tailored
to deliver a solution that not only just creates
a climatic solution but actually enables a mass
rollout and that's really where we're focused.
And of course recently I believe that you raised,
and do correct me if I'm wrong, you raised about
I think it's 18 .2 million to scale up funding.
US dollars to move this forward and that is for
specifically work across the US is it and Europe
on this? The European market including the UK
and obviously the US market is where we are primarily
focused and this is about rolling out our pilots
so we can do the technology demonstrations at
scale and provide confidence around the solution
to industry so we can then scale and then roll
this technology out. Okay, because cost is something
we talk about very often in our decarbonisation
dialogue, of course, because there is a race,
as you mentioned, to get to our challenging net
zero targets and goals and to meet the various
goals that we've been set. But of course, there
is a cost to that. So the science, and I'm going
to get to David on this, which areas like carbon
capture from the air? And if you can explain
this really simply for me, storing clean energy
or helping industries reduce emissions, do you
see as the most important for your technology?
How does that all come together? Can you explain
what it is, first of all, and how it works together?
So we are really talking about problems related
with gas. It could be gas storage or gas separation.
When we started burning fossil fuels in the 18th
century with the Industrial Revolution, obviously
we had a huge impact into the environment. It
wasn't clear for a century or so, but obviously
people started realizing that the greenhouse
effect is a reality, climate change, and we see...
every year how the situation is more and more
important and dramatic here. So the opportunity
is really being able to really say, well, obviously
we want to move into renewable energy, but this
will need some time, some transition. So while
we are still using fossil fuels, can we have
a solution where we can really capture this CO2
that is produced in the chimneys? So we avoid
all these emissions into the environment. And
at the same time, While we are moving into this
electrification of the whole industry, we will
have also an opportunity in the future of continuing
using CO2, but now with a value added. This is
about carbon capture. Energy storage is also
quite important because there is the opportunity
of also densifying these gases and being able
to really put more higher amounts of gas in a
smaller volume, which is always going to be important
for any industrial application. Both solutions?
even carbon capture or the densification of these
gases, at the end of the day, we are using porous
materials, okay, materials with a high pore volume,
high porosity, to be able to interact with these
gases, being able to capture the CO2 selectively,
or being able to absorb and store hydrogen, the
same with water, a lot of different applications.
And the solution we are working on, and this
is the common point around all these different
technologies, is around a relatively new family
of materials called metal -organic frameworks.
These are porous coordination polymers that received
the Nobel Prize in chemistry this year. And we
were extremely happy to see this recognition.
And it really makes very interesting technology,
very interesting materials that we can. are used
to, as I said, very selectively interact with
molecules, gases, so we can really filter them,
capture them, or store them. That's interesting
that you mentioned the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
because that was quite a big deal, wasn't it,
to have, and correct me if I'm wrong, but to
have the fact that metal -organic frameworks
were recognized within that. How do you think
that's been received? What difference do you
think that's making to your work and to communication
of it? So obviously, these technologies are very
well known in academic environments, little by
little in industry, but it's more difficult to
really communicate these to your family, for
example, to your friends and the public in general,
being able to really understand the work we are
doing. is going to be quite important now. Thanks
to the Nobel Prize, people will be able to recognize
something a little bit similar to graphene. Many
people knew about graphene because it got the
Nobel Prize, people were always looking for applications
and trying to see how we can really use this
new material, new technology. We have the opportunity
now with these metal -organic frameworks because
finally they were more or less discovered between
30 -25 years ago. they were finally recognized.
That was super important. Just going back to
Mohamed, we talk a lot about technology and innovation
when we talk about climate change solutions.
We talk a lot about what we're doing to kind
of mitigate the impacts that we see in our news
practically every day, by the way. We're seeing
climate change in our news every day. We talk
about solar, we talk about heat pumps, we talk
about heat networks, we talk about geothermal,
for example. Do you think that people are talking
enough about carbon capture, hydrogen storage,
all of that? And what part does that play in
the conversation? I think it plays quite a central
part in the sense that If we looked at some statistics
and looked at what are the largest sources of
emissions, they're generally from industry. And
that's where the topic is very central and extremely
relevant. I guess some of the other examples
that you cited affect consumers as well, and
therefore they are more familiar. with the terminology
around solar panels and heat pumps and things
like that. But what's really driving all of this
is essentially three things. One, the temperatures
are rising and the weather is changing and people
can see that and that's quite visible and that's
obviously associated with the climate challenges
and issues. Secondly, energy costs are rising
wherever there is supply disruption, cost of
living and inflation is affected. If we look
at the last year and a half, two years in the
UK in particular, costs of electricity and gas
have been rising because of those supply disruptions
as well. And then obviously thirdly is in order
to reduce, have a new solution that is more environmentally
friendly, addresses some of the scarcity hiccups
and is affordable is where some of these technologies
come in. And I think it's going to be a combination
of a number of technologies. across a range of
industries and sort of value chains that will
have the overall impact. But carbon capture or
CO2 emissions is a big theme. It's a big issue
and clearly needs to be addressed in the right
sort of economic manner because that will actually
help industry to roll it out. It needs to have
a business case. It needs to have a payback and
also to alleviate some of the burden of government
subsidies, for example, because obviously there
are market cycles. Things go up and they come
down. Funding isn't always available. So it's
coming up with solutions that can stand alone,
don't actually require significant subsidy and
can be scaled and rolled out because they are
very affordable. People are very familiar with
the engineering solutions and they can be adapted
very quickly. And I think it's a combination
of all of those things. that we really need in
order to move the agenda forward and that's really
where we're focused on the material. Because
we've talked about the cost and you've raised
money and that's a challenge and then of course
and you've just mentioned scaling up of materials
which is another big challenge. Do you think
that's the hardest part of turning the metal
organic frameworks or MOFs? I try and avoid acronyms
in this so I'm going to say the whole thing out
in full. What is the hardest part of turning
metal organic frameworks into mass -produced
cost -effective products? What's the challenge
that you're facing? I think if we just dial back
out and just look at what it is that we're trying
to do, it's actually delivering a solution that
makes financial and economic sense for the customer.
The materials are one component of it, but it's
actually delivering them inside a system. The
greatest challenge is the demonstration. It's
time. This is deep tech. We are engaged with
a range of industries where our customers are
primarily blue chip, so they are listed companies,
so they want to see proof points at various capacities.
So it's the timeline and the duration around
that. I think for a material, you know, where
we are focused and where we are very different
is that we have a combination. So our innovation
is obviously the materials and our ability to
capture significantly more volume compared to
other MOFs. There's a very clear distinction
there. And then there is familiarity so it's
using unit operations designs systems that are
familiar to industry and so what we are doing
is we've got a combination of where innovation
is unique around the science so it's the densification
of our materials and how we actually do the integration
inside existing proven at scale systems so for
us it's a very different pathway so it's combining
innovation with familiarity but the real focus
is, how do we do that in a very fast way so that
we can actually have an alternative to the incumbent
technology, which is a chemical process, which
is extremely expensive. And communicate it to
those potential customers that you have. Now,
David, can I come to you for the looking at the,
we're talking about carbon capture, hydrogen
storage, but we're also talking about climate
change and greenhouse gases, and we want to obviously
reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
How do you ensure that through these processes,
that you're actually going to reduce the carbon.
We're not actually going to create more through
that whole manufacturing process that you're
creating. You've launched a new company. You
know, there's a lot of people. There are more
new products. How do we kind of make sure that
it is fair and well balanced in achieving what
you want it to? The design that is done in the
lab, obviously, is always difficult to scale
up. It's difficult to really translate to industry.
And this is why it's key to have this transition
exercise where we make sure that we can manufacture
these materials cheaply, in terms of energy consumption.
We don't want to use very intense products, processes,
high temperatures. We don't want to use toxic
solvents, for example. We want to have some what
we call green synthesis, which essentially means
that we don't want to use high temperatures,
high pressures. We don't want to use anything
that is not almost water as a solvent, if we
can. making sure that the manufacturing is relatively
simple and it's never going to be exotic process
that will be super expensive. Very expensive
at the end of the day translates into use a huge
amount of energy many times. And that's what
we are really avoiding. So we have seen this.
We have seen that we can manufacture these materials
without many difficulties. Now, we have a material
that will be able to really capture the CO2.
Once we are able to really prove that the technology
can be scaled up with the prototypes and the
systems are working the way we say, then obviously
that will make the big difference. And of course,
you're scaling up and you're doing all of that
work, but let's talk for a moment, Mohamed, about
government policies. What is it that we need
to happen for a company like yours to make a
difference? It's a couple of things. If we look
at the UK, for example, as a starter, where Europe
being the European trading scheme, we've got
good pricing, market pricing kind of mechanisms
being established. Where we need government policy
to kind of focus is acceleration of new technology
that is economically viable, because that will
actually have a significant impact, not only
in addressing the climate goals in the UK, but
actually on the on the economy as a whole, because
we would be avoiding significant amounts of capital.
So if we look at the UK market, and let's say
we decarbonized half of the UK market, we could
probably add, in terms of capital avoidance,
we would save at least one third of the UK GDP.
That's significant. And I think that's really
where we need some bold moves to enable acceleration,
not development, but acceleration of technology
that's got promise that would actually help address
the financial puzzle. because that will actually
unlock economic growth and reduce significantly
the burden on the UK economy as well, especially
from a taxpayer, from a government perspective.
Let's fast forward five years. What does success
look like for you there and your work, but the
planet as well, Mohamed? I think success for
the company is about having an engineering solution
that's ready for commercial rollout in very simple
terms. And success for the planet is I think
for us, you know, speaking on behalf of everyone
in material, I think it's deep gratification
that we will have had an impact in bringing a
new technology that is very affordable, that
can actually secure a green future for future
generations. Because you have obviously set up
this company, I think you're based at Cambridge
Science Park, and presumably you employ people
just as passionate as yourselves. looking at
the generations ahead as well, looking to the
future. Absolutely. David, in terms of the technologies,
what possibilities or new possibilities do you
see for the technology that could make a big
difference in the fight against climate change?
I mean, obviously, the first one is all these
around carbon capture. That's the closer market,
the easiest way of deploying this technology
to really make this difference, this impact that
Mohamed was referring. But then, I mean, sky
is the future. Sky is the limit. We can work
on water harvesting. We can work on reducing
the impact of air conditioning, air heating systems
by making systems which are much more effective,
consume lower amount of energy. There is different
gas separations, for example, that could be extremely
expensive. And again, using these porous materials
to selectively separate, discriminate between
molecules will also have a huge impact. So a
lot of different possibilities, a lot of different
technologies, areas where these materials can
be applied to. Sky is the limit indeed. My final
question to both of you, I think I kind of know
the answer particularly after that sky is the
limit comment. Question to Mohamed, are you positive
or negative about our climate future? extremely
positive, which is why we're obviously purposefully
putting the effort in. We believe we can make
a fundamental difference. So we're actually working
backwards. We've looked at the industries, the
market, the challenge and ultimately every technology
solution needs to make financial sense. So that
really has been our starting point and we're
working backwards and we've got a great combination
of talent that's young, that's very energetic
and very creative along with people that have
been there, done that a number of times or so
many times. So we've got a very unique combination
and we've got a very pragmatic approach and we
believe we will make a significant difference.
We're really excited about that. It is super
to have that combination, isn't it? So the set
of people from all backgrounds and all experiences.
Same question to you, David. I suppose it's negative
or positive or optimist or pessimist. I think
I know what's coming. Yeah, absolutely. I'm always
a very optimistic person. I think climate change
has a solution, but obviously it requires the
effort of everyone as a society. We have the
responsibility of really making these changes
and making sure that we really pay attention
to these problems. If we do this, then absolutely
very, very optimistic. And this is where immaterial
can really offer the solution. And the carbon
capital at low cost, low price is going to be...
Thank you very much for that very inspirational
podcast interview and that's a big thank you
to Mohamed. and to David from Immaterial and
for providing such insight today. There can be
no doubt that climate change is the biggest challenge
of our time. Today, we must reduce greenhouse
gas emissions to slow global warming. Today,
we must act for tomorrow, adjusting our lifestyles
to current and future impacts of climate change.
Today, we must use our collective wisdom to deliver
on our climate commitments. Today, we must work
for tomorrow's world. Don't forget to subscribe
to our podcast channels and please do email us
at podcast at salixfinance .co .uk. UK with your
ideas and even suggestions for our guests. Thank
you once again to Mohamed and David. Thank you,
Hannah. Thank you, Hannah. You've been listening
to the Decarbonisation Dialogue, a podcast from
Salix. For more information about our work and
to find more content, please visit salixfinance
.co .uk forward slash podcasts.