Ionic Begins Major Initiative with Tata Steel and Monash University to deliver technologies to markets in India and globally
We are very proud to announce the development of a comprehensive collaboration arrangement with Tata Steel (“Tata”). With a market capitalization of USD 27B, Tata is one of the world’s largest steel manufacturers and the largest in India. Tata Steel has strong market presence across a range of sectors, an ambitious sustainability mandate and high emphasis on the importance of new materials to support ever-growing demands in materials technology applications.
For the past 12 months, Ionic has been working intensively with Monash University and Tata Steel on the formation of an advanced materials technology commercialization hub, based in Melbourne, for the explicit purpose of commercializing the most promising technologies. Through this arrangement, Ionic will develop manufacturing supply chain arrangements directly with Tata on its currently-commercialized technologies for which there is an existing market e.g. our conductive geotextiles that are currently sold and deployed in Australia. Ionic will also work with Tata tobring itsnear-ready technologies for deployment into the Indian market, including its real-time sensing surfaces for leak detection across multiple construction and mining applications.
Tata Steel CEO, T V Narendran, explained their reasoning for seeking partnerships like this:
“As the oldest steel maker in India, Tata Steel has taken upon itself the responsibility of leading the change towards more sustainable manufacturing practices. Today, we are building a comprehensive ecosystem that involves partners with the most promising unique technologies”.
Ionic, through its long-standing partnership with Monash University, as well as its position as a major partner in the Advanced Manufacturing with 2D Materials Hub, is in prime position to contribute to, and benefit from, the development of this Tata ecosystem.
This step comes after nearly 12 months of thorough discussions and exploration of ways to deliver new materials technology through Tata to global markets. This has involved a range of technical exchanges on several of Ionic’s technologies, including our sensing geosynthetic products that are currently sold in markets in Australia and the Pacific. Tata Vice President for Technology and New Materials, Debashish Bhattacharjee, visited Ionic’s manufacturing facility and had the opportunity to see first-hand our capacity to manufacture graphene materials at industrial scale with profitable revenues from our large area sensing surfaces.
The next steps in this process will be to explore more detailed commercialization arrangements. In particular, Ionic sees enormous potential in the Indian market for its leak detection capabilities in mining and resources applications as well as sensing surfaces for applications like smart conveyors.
India could be the first major stop on the road to Ionic’s global expansion.
We will have further updates on other aspects of our company coming shortly as details are confirmed.
Read more on the official announcements here:
1. https://www.aumanufacturing.com.au/monash-tata-steel-to-establish-innovation-centre
2. https://am2d.org/2024/06/21/tatasteel_mou/
3. https://www.tatasteel.com/media/newsroom/press-releases/india/2024/tata-steel-and-australias-monash-university-sign-mou-to-set-up-sustainability-focused-centre-for-innovation/
As always, please feel free to get in touch if you’ve any further questions.
All the best,
The Ionic Team.