International nanotechnology company OCSiAl is in advanced talks to set up a production facility in Israel at an investment of $30 million. The planned plant will be able to produce up to 50 tons of Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes (SWCNTs) annually. This will make it one of the world’s largest facilities for manufacturing the product.
OCSiAl is examining potential sites for the plant in Southern Israel. OCSiAl will employ around 30 workers in Israel, mainly chemical engineers, industrial engineers, process engineers and automatic machine operators.
OCSiAl is an international nanotechnology company with operations in the US, UK, Germany, South Korea and Russia, and is headquartered in Luxemburg. OCSiAl employs 160 workers, including 22 scientists and 17 experienced managers. OCSiAl has invented and has been operating the world’s first mass production process for single wall carbon nanotubes, a process which redefines the market and reduces the cost of the current production process by a factor of up to 100.
The technology has drawn the interest of industrial companies in Israel and many companies have already registered for a technological-scientific conference on carbon nanotubes, which OCSiAl will hold in cooperation with the Institute for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials at Bar Ilan University on November 13. Ziva Eger, Head of Industrial Cooperation Authority and Investment Promotion at the Israeli Ministry of Economy, is due to speak at the conference at Bar Ilan.
Many companies representatives have already registered for the conference, including representatives from Keter Plastic, Intel, HP, Vulcan Volta, IAI, Rafael, Elbit, 3M, Kodak and many other companies. In addition to the industrial experts, the conference will be attended by scientists from the universities of Bar Ilan, Tel Aviv, Ariel, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, as well as scientists from the Technion, Weizmann Institute, HIT and Soreq Nuclear Research Center.
OCSiAI VP Konstantin Notman said, “Israel is one of the world’s leading knowledge and innovation centers in nanotechnology and this is why we are interested in setting up a plant here. We intend to deepen the contact with the Israeli market in all aspects setting up our largest production facility here, enlarging our customer base, establishing contacts with Israeli dealers and conducting cooperation with industrial companies and academic bodies.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 11, 2014
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