Craig Nicol with a successful career of over 20 years in delivering large scale innovation including leading multi-billion-dollar gas and LNG value chains in Australia and the Asia Pacific and managing sales and marketing teams across the Asia Pacific working for Shell International.

He holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Manufacturing Systems (Honours) and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Marketing from the Queensland University of Technology.

We at AlCircle got a wonderful opportunity for an interview in regards to graphene aluminium-ion batteries ("G+AI Battery") with Mr Craig Nicol, Founder, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, Graphene Manufacturing Group (GMG) in regards to graphene aluminium-ion batteries ("G+AI Battery").

AlCircle: With the G+AI batteries already sent to the customers for testing, what are your anticipations or expectations about it?

Mr Craig Nicol:  Anticipations on customer feedback are amongst other items focused on their response on the G+AI battery charging and discharging cycle – as it is so fast and not like lithium and this changes the paradigm on how these batteries can be used and therefore there are expected wider applications.

AlCircle: How do you think, the customers are going to take it up?

Mr Craig Nicol: Generally Customers are quite excited about how they can use this new technology – but also looking to see the limitations and how these will work within potential applications – existing and new. Overall we have had quite high demand and expectations from customers for testing and we look forward to their response.

AlCircle: When are you planning to make the G+AI batteries available in the market? 

Mr Craig Nicol: GMG hopes to go into commercial production in the near term – after receiving customer feedback, progressing our battery manufacturing plant with Bosch and taking a final investment decision (amongst other things).

AlCircle: What kind of reactions do you think the G+AI batteries are going to receive from the market once it will be launched?

Mr Craig Nicol: The reaction has been extraordinary – the G+AI batteries have so much potential and this is seen by the reaction we get from potential battery customers when we publish our progress (especially around the opening of our pilot plant and release of new battery prototypes). There is a mood of anticipation that there is something unique here – which is something special to be a part of.

Alcircle: The G+AI battery comes loaded with a much faster and energy-efficient feature. How would you describe GMG’s energy-saving solutions?

Mr Craig Nicol: Graphene (of which the battery is largely made up) provides a genuinely unique material technology advantage on the transfer of heat and storing ions – which are the two biggest challenges in manufacturing high-performance batteries – so the G+AI battery is really in the sweet spot of graphene.

AlCircle: How do you think GMG’s energy-saving solutions will bring a change on a global level?

Mr Craig Nicol: GMG has specifically focused on delivering scalable products/solutions to reduce energy and for energy storage. Hence as we bring these products through to full commercialisation – we feel we have a good advantage – as they have been designed to be global from the start with myself and others in the GMG team working most of our careers in one of the largest energy companies in the world before starting GMG – Shell.

AlCircle: The need for a greener and sustainable environment has become important for the manufacturing industry. How do you think GMG has been doing in achieving the same?

Mr Craig Nicol: GMG has specifically focused on energy savings for our products utilising a unique parameter of Graphene – very high heat transfer (the highest of any material). When you speed up heat transfer in any energy system you generally increase energy efficiency. So the company advantage comes from the inherent nanomaterial advantage we manufacture and use in our products.