GraphiCore has achieved Technology Readiness Level 5 for its high-temperature vacuum gripping technology, demonstrating stable performance up to 1,400°C in a recent test campaign, including on contaminated stainless steel at 1,200°C and refractory mullite ceramic at 1,400°C, with a lifting capacity of more than 3 tons per square metre.
The results challenge a long-standing assumption that vacuum gripping is limited to clean, controlled environments, and point toward a broader application: extreme-environment automation for sectors such as nuclear decommissioning, advanced manufacturing, and fusion energy, where conventional handling methods remain costly and inefficient. While GraphiCore’s technology originated from handling fragile, irradiated graphite in legacy nuclear reactors, the company is now expanding toward a material-agnostic gripping platform adaptable to metals, ceramics, and composites, developed in collaboration with Politecnico di Milano. Next steps include pushing lifting capacity toward 5 t/m² and validating industrial reliability, as GraphiCore seeks partners to deploy the technology in real industrial settings.
