Advanced Energy Materials, LLC (ADEM) was founded in 2009 as a spinoff of the University of Louisville, with the goal of commercializing nanowire-based materials for fuel improvements and fuel alternatives and nanowire materials for lithium-ion batteries and energy storage applications. The company soon found its niche application in the catalysis market and started to develop catalyst products for hydrodesulfurization (HDS) and refinery applications and continues to develop advanced nanomaterials for a wide range of applications. The company has an exclusive license agreement with the University of Louisville with a patent portfolio of 9 issued and 4 pending patents. ADEM also owns 4 additional patents pending, that are based on its scale-up methodology and catalyst formulations for desulfurization applications. Its products can replace current state-of-the-art catalysts for traditional refining using hydrogen and also for new refineries that do not use hydrogen. ADEM has developed five different catalyst products: AdE-Sulfur, AdE-Scat, AdE-Ccat, AdE-Sorb and AdE-Biocat and has completed initial product testing in 2016. ADEMs HDS Catalysts have proven to remove sulfur in diesel to lower than 1 ppm, which is not possible with the current products available in the market. The catalysts designed using nanowire based materials have high activity, selectivity and a durable life-time for industrial and chemical processing applications. ADEM has demonstrated the production scale at 100 Kgs/day for its nanowire materials and ton scale for its catalysts. In 2017, ADEM set up its commercial manufacturing and R&D facility to supply catalyst products. The goal is to customize its products for customer specific conditions and processes and can implement a drop-in solution for each application. ADEM plans to test its products at small refineries in the next two years and introduce its catalyst products worldwide for medium to large-scale refineries.
