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 Curran was invented by Cellucomp co-founders Dr David Hepworth and
Dr Eric Whale, a pair of Edinburgh-based scientists looking to
create a composite to rival carbon fibre. But having proved the
principle of Curran's strength by making a commercially available
fly fishing rod, they have since concentrated their efforts on
developing a product for the paints and coatings industry.
According to Cellucomp chief executive Christian Kemp-Griffin,
Curran's physical strength, combined with its viscosity when added
to liquids and composites, make it unique.
"Curran is a material that is derived from nanocellulose particles -
root vegetables," said Kemp-Griffin. "Now when you get down to that
very, very small size you actually get incredible strength
properties. So when we put the resulting product that we have into
other products, as an additive that goes into other products, it
actually adds strength to those products, as well as adding
viscosity, and there is no other product that will do both things at
the same time."
Curran is the Gaelic word for carrot, which was the first root
vegetable that Hepworth and Whale experimented with, due to its easy
availability in shops. They moved onto sugar beet, due to the sheer
volume of extracted waste in factories from sugar production.
Approximately 20 percent of sugar is derived from sugar beet root
globally.
Wood is used by other nano cellulose manufacturers, but Hepworth
says beet is preferable because it grows quickly and breaks down
easily, and as the vast majority of the plant is wasted there is a
positive environmental impact. "It takes less energy to produce this material than it would to make
nanocellulose from something else, like trees, so we're trying to do
this in a very energy-minimising way, which is good for the
environment and it's good for us because it saves costs of
production, so we can potentially produce a cost-effective material
and that opens a number of markets," said Hepworth.
 The firm has a new factory just outside Edinburgh, which is able to
produce 400 tonnes of Curran powder per year, a substantial amount
considering how little is actually needed in any product. For
instance, it makes up less than one percent of the ingredients of
the paint developed by Curran and paint company Whitson’s. Cellucomp
wants to expand production to 2,000 tonnes annually within three
years, having received much interest internationally from large
manufacturers.
"The feed stock that we use is from a sidestream from the sugar
producing industry," said Hepworth. "It's the waste pulp that comes
after they're removed the sugar, which is then pressed and dried
into pellets for ease of shipment. So you can see the bottom of this
stack here I've got the dried pellets. So that can be used as a
low-grade cattle feed, but obviously we want to take this material
and turn it into something that has a lot more value."
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Hepworth says that although sugar beet factories, mainly in Europe,
create large amounts of waste pellets, they are looking into other
natural materials from which fibre could be extracted, such as
potatoes and palm fruit.
Kemp-Griffin says Curran can be used for hundreds of applications.
"There are all kinds of potential applications that Curran can be
used for," he said. "It can go into things like paint and coatings,
it can go into concrete, cosmetics. It can even be used for drilling
fluids, as an additive to go into your food, and go into composites.
So you can imagine one day airplane wings made from Curran."
Arguably the largest current market for Curran is the £2 billion
paint and coating additives industry. Cellucomp have already linked
up with paint manufacturers Whitson to create a new range of paints,
set to go on the market shortly.
Whitson's founder - and famous decorating guru - Cait Whitson says
adding Curran to her paint's ingredients has had multiple benefits,
in addition to being environmentally friendly. Curran makes up 0.6
percent of her paint's ingredients.
According to Whitson, "one of the things that excited me about the
Curran product was that a very small amount of Curran adds a
significant amount of durability to the paint product. Secondly was
the rheology, about how the paint flowed from the brush, how it
flowed from the roller, what it was like to use, really I wanted a
paint that over any substrate, however sucky or dry or very
absorbent emulsions that you can work over that it didn't drag, and
that has really come out with the Curran," she said.
Whitson says Curran helps make paint scrub-resistant, avoids
unsightly brush marks, and prevents cracking, particularly in
so-called 'putty' paints used widely in the Middle East.
Cellucomp has received major financial backing from the Scottish
government and its economic development offshoot Scottish
Enterprise, and now believes it is on the way to potentially
becoming a billion-dollar company.
The company is also looking to use Curran to reinforce recycled
paper.
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