Grafite e grafene i materiali del futuro ?

Il prezzo della grafite ha seguito quello delle altre materie prime ed è sceso ai minimi storici, trascinando verso il basso le quotazioni delle aziende che si occupano di grafite.
Ad esempio Flinders ha sospeso la produzione, nella speranza che i prezzi risalgano e cerca ora di riposizionarsi nel più redditizio mercato della coated graphite.
Per me credo che ci vorranno anni prima che mi rifaccia delle perdite subite in questi mesi.
progress.gif
 
September 21, 2015
Flinders' Woxna in Swedish Graphene Project
 Vancouver, Canada - Flinders Resources Limited ("Flinders" or the "Company") (TSXV: FDR) is pleased to announce its Swedish subsidiary, Woxna Graphite AB ("Woxna") has been chosen as an industry partner within Svenskt Grafen ("Swedish Graphene"), a Swedish-government funded program to research and commercialize the production of graphene from Swedish-sourced graphite. With a production-ready, fully permitted graphite mine and processing facility, Woxna is the natural partner for this program.

Key points:
In 2013, the European Union launched the Graphene Flagship Project, a ten-year, €1 billion (US$1.1B) project to research graphene commercialization. Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden, is the project coordinator.
In 2015, Sweden launched SIO Grafen, a three-year, SEK 54M (US$6.4M) project aimed at strategic innovation to commercialize graphene production in Sweden. SIO Grafen is financially supported by the Swedish government and industry.
In 2015, SIO Grafen initiated Swedish Graphene, a 2-year, SEK 2.4M (US$0.28M) project to investigate Woxna's Swedish flake graphite, and its suitability to produce graphene on an industrial scale.
Flinders' partner in Swedish Graphene is 2D Fab AB ("2D Fab"), a company spin-off from Mittuniversitetet (Mid Sweden University), who have been conducting graphene research for many years.
The Swedish government is providing funding for Swedish Graphene. Swedish Graphene will run until November 2016.

Blair Way, President & CEO states, "This announcement represents an exciting milestone for Flinders, placing the Company at the forefront of one of the fast moving areas of new materials research. The European Union and Sweden are global leaders in the research and development of graphene, with a significant research history and very substantial future funding. Sweden is highly regarded as a technology-driven industrial economy, and SIO Grafen cements Sweden's position as a sustainable leader in the development and commercialization of graphene.

Flinders is extremely proud to be a part of this leading technology project to develop graphene from Swedish-sourced graphite. The partnering of a fully permitted graphite mine with fully funded graphene research of this scale, makes for a strong and unique story with the capacity to deliver in industrially-relevant time frames.

The Swedish Graphene project completes the third link in our strategy to position Woxna as a leading supplier to the current and future graphite and graphene industries. Woxna has produced and sold flake graphite to the traditional refractory sector, and is currently researching the production of high purity graphite product with Chinese technology suppliers."

Graphene is the world's thinnest material, extremely light, strong and flexible. It is also a transparent conductor, combining electrical and optical functionalities. It is believed the material will provide unique possibilities for completely new solutions and collaborations between sectors.

The purpose of the Swedish Graphene project is to produce graphene from graphite produced in Sweden. The secondary objective is to find appropriate commercial applications for Swedish graphene. Woxna, as one of Europe's two graphite mines, and Sweden's only graphite producer, can supply domestically sourced natural flake graphite which provides a clear strategic advantage for Sweden.

A mining study to establish the technical feasibility and economic viability of the Woxna Project has not been completed nor does the project host a mineral reserve. There is increased uncertainty and risk of economic and technical failure should the project proceed to further production. While the property hosts mineral resources, mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

Woxna and its partner 2D Fab form the first two links in the graphite to graphene value chain and are the main participants in the Swedish Graphene project. The partners will seek support from Swedish industry to evaluate the graphene produced from Swedish graphite in printing, energy and surface treatment applications. The next stage of the Swedish Graphene project is to seek potential industrial users of the graphene for use in a range of products.

Woxna has already mined and milled in excess of 1,000 tonnes of natural flake graphite since restarting the facility last year. High grade large flake concentrate has already been shipped to 2D Fab. Test work on the Swedish graphite-to-graphene process has already commenced, with 2D Fab running Woxna natural flake graphite concentrate through their unique and sustainable technology that has the ability to produce graphene from natural flake graphite, water and minimal energy.

The qualified person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 for the Woxna project, Blair Way, President and Chief Executive Officer and a director of the Company, and a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, has reviewed and verified the contents of this release.

On behalf of the Board,

"Blair Way"
Blair Way, President and CEO
 
September 21, 2015
Flinders' Woxna in Swedish Graphene Project
 Vancouver, Canada - Flinders Resources Limited ("Flinders" or the "Company") (TSXV: FDR) is pleased to announce its Swedish subsidiary, Woxna Graphite AB ("Woxna") has been chosen as an industry partner within Svenskt Grafen ("Swedish Graphene"), a Swedish-government funded program to research and commercialize the production of graphene from Swedish-sourced graphite. With a production-ready, fully permitted graphite mine and processing facility, Woxna is the natural partner for this program.

Key points:
In 2013, the European Union launched the Graphene Flagship Project, a ten-year, €1 billion (US$1.1B) project to research graphene commercialization. Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden, is the project coordinator.
In 2015, Sweden launched SIO Grafen, a three-year, SEK 54M (US$6.4M) project aimed at strategic innovation to commercialize graphene production in Sweden. SIO Grafen is financially supported by the Swedish government and industry.
In 2015, SIO Grafen initiated Swedish Graphene, a 2-year, SEK 2.4M (US$0.28M) project to investigate Woxna's Swedish flake graphite, and its suitability to produce graphene on an industrial scale.
Flinders' partner in Swedish Graphene is 2D Fab AB ("2D Fab"), a company spin-off from Mittuniversitetet (Mid Sweden University), who have been conducting graphene research for many years.
The Swedish government is providing funding for Swedish Graphene. Swedish Graphene will run until November 2016.

Blair Way, President & CEO states, "This announcement represents an exciting milestone for Flinders, placing the Company at the forefront of one of the fast moving areas of new materials research. The European Union and Sweden are global leaders in the research and development of graphene, with a significant research history and very substantial future funding. Sweden is highly regarded as a technology-driven industrial economy, and SIO Grafen cements Sweden's position as a sustainable leader in the development and commercialization of graphene.

Flinders is extremely proud to be a part of this leading technology project to develop graphene from Swedish-sourced graphite. The partnering of a fully permitted graphite mine with fully funded graphene research of this scale, makes for a strong and unique story with the capacity to deliver in industrially-relevant time frames.

The Swedish Graphene project completes the third link in our strategy to position Woxna as a leading supplier to the current and future graphite and graphene industries. Woxna has produced and sold flake graphite to the traditional refractory sector, and is currently researching the production of high purity graphite product with Chinese technology suppliers."

Graphene is the world's thinnest material, extremely light, strong and flexible. It is also a transparent conductor, combining electrical and optical functionalities. It is believed the material will provide unique possibilities for completely new solutions and collaborations between sectors.

The purpose of the Swedish Graphene project is to produce graphene from graphite produced in Sweden. The secondary objective is to find appropriate commercial applications for Swedish graphene. Woxna, as one of Europe's two graphite mines, and Sweden's only graphite producer, can supply domestically sourced natural flake graphite which provides a clear strategic advantage for Sweden.

A mining study to establish the technical feasibility and economic viability of the Woxna Project has not been completed nor does the project host a mineral reserve. There is increased uncertainty and risk of economic and technical failure should the project proceed to further production. While the property hosts mineral resources, mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

Woxna and its partner 2D Fab form the first two links in the graphite to graphene value chain and are the main participants in the Swedish Graphene project. The partners will seek support from Swedish industry to evaluate the graphene produced from Swedish graphite in printing, energy and surface treatment applications. The next stage of the Swedish Graphene project is to seek potential industrial users of the graphene for use in a range of products.

Woxna has already mined and milled in excess of 1,000 tonnes of natural flake graphite since restarting the facility last year. High grade large flake concentrate has already been shipped to 2D Fab. Test work on the Swedish graphite-to-graphene process has already commenced, with 2D Fab running Woxna natural flake graphite concentrate through their unique and sustainable technology that has the ability to produce graphene from natural flake graphite, water and minimal energy.

The qualified person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 for the Woxna project, Blair Way, President and Chief Executive Officer and a director of the Company, and a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, has reviewed and verified the contents of this release.

On behalf of the Board,

"Blair Way"
Blair Way, President and CEO
 
Zenyatta Receives Positive Results from Ben-Gurion University (Israel) on Albany Graphite
Thunder Bay, ON
24 September 2015

Zenyatta Ventures Ltd. (“Zenyatta” or “Company”) (TSXV: ZEN) is pleased to announce positive results related to the characteristics of the Albany graphite from testing at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (“BGU”), Israel. BGU has identified properties of Zenyatta’s Albany graphite that show positive attributes for use in multiple graphene applications.

Dr. Oren Regev, Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at BGU, stated “Zenyatta’s purified graphite material was tested by our R&D team on dispersion and application for composite property enhancement on drug delivery and hydrogen storage devices. BGU regularly uses various types of commercially available natural flake graphite but found Albany graphite to exfoliate under sonication much easier and with higher yields of graphene nano-particles than any other natural graphite types that we have tried. Sonication is a highly effective process using sound energy to agitate the graphene layers for separation. The Zenyatta graphite appears to be composed of smaller and cleaner particles with a narrower particle size distribution. We believe that this is a high value special material with unique characteristics that could make Albany graphite the preferred material for conversion to valuable graphene applications.”

BGU is a research leader in alternative energy, robotics and nano-technology while playing a critical role in transforming Israel’s high-tech growth. Specifically, the BGU research group focuses on carbon nanotubes and graphene product derivatives for new applications. The Advanced Technologies Park (ATP), adjacent to BGU is home to many multi-national high-tech companies, such as EMC, Oracle, Hewlett Packard, and Deutsche Telekom, which are leveraging the R&D expertise of BGU mainly through B. G. Negev Technologies and Applications Ltd. (“BGN”). BGN is the technology transfer and commercialization company for development of university technologies with industry partners.

BGU’s expertise in nanoscience is advancing new materials to convert light and heat into electrical energy, to produce lightweight cars and planes of unprecedented strength. Researchers are developing incredibly small transistors to power computers, membranes for desalinating water, graphene surfaces loaded with specific drugs for delivery to targeted diseased cells, graphene reinforcement in cement-based materials and hydrogen storage device as a key enabling technology for the advancement of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.

Dr. Regev further stated, “Thermogravimetric Analysis (‘TGA’) by BGU on Zenyatta material found it to be completely different from any other natural graphite flake products studied so far in our lab. As a matter of fact, it is the same order of magnitude as commercially available Graphene Nano Platelets (GnP) derived from more expensive sources. These ideal properties probably stem from the unique geological process by which the Albany graphite deposit was formed.”

Zenyatta and BGU (through BGN) have identified funding support opportunities and are presently in discussions with governments and private corporations to secure these arrangements for scaling up our collaboration. Additionally, BGN is in discussions with a commercial partner in Israel that will collaborate with them on the research and development of graphene products from Albany graphite in a specific application that will be discussed in future news releases. BGN believes the project will also identify other methods and uses for commercially viable graphene products from Zenyatta’s Albany graphite deposit.

Dr. Bharat Chahar, VP of Market Development for Zenyatta stated, “The Company is excited with these results and is very pleased to learn that BGU has expressed a strong interest in the potential of our material. It provides further evidence of the suitability of this unique material for many applications. Zenyatta is convinced of the importance of this new and superior (graphene) material and recognizes the $billions spent globally on R&D by large corporations and academics. It is important for Zenyatta to play an active role in R&D related to graphene research but at this point it will supply limited resources and Albany graphite samples to research facilities and receive results in return. We still believe that graphene requires technological development before the world sees large scale commercial viability but are delighted to play a prominent part in the advancement of a new innovative material.”
Graphene is a single sheet of pure graphite that is one atom thick, flexible, transparent, stronger than diamonds or steel and is highly conductive. This one material could prove more revolutionary than plastic or the silicon chip. Experts believe that graphene will enable many innovative applications, including low-cost solar cells, super computers and rapid charge batteries. So far, one obstacle to its widespread use is the high manufacturing cost for high-quality graphene. A lower-cost approach is to use high purity natural graphite as the starting point.
Zenyatta continues to develop its unique Albany graphite deposit in Ontario, Canada. The Company’s highly crystalline graphite deposit is situated 30 km north of the Trans-Canada Highway, power line and natural gas pipeline near the communities of Constance Lake First Nation and Hearst. A rail line is located 70 km away with an all-weather road approximately 10 km from the graphite deposit. The world trend is to develop products for technological applications that need extraordinary performance using ultra-high purity graphite powder at an affordable cost. High purity and highly crystalline graphite material is gaining prominence in the clean-tech sector at a time when Zenyatta discovered an extremely rare (one of a kind - hydrothermal) graphite deposit. Albany graphite can be upgraded with very good crystallinity without the use of aggressive acids (hydrofluoric) or high temperature thermal treatment therefore having an environmental advantage over other types of upgraded high purity graphite material.
Zenyatta embarked on a market development program over a year ago to initiate validation of Albany graphite in high purity graphite applications. Since the start of this program, the Company has had detailed conversations with more than 35 graphite end-users, academic institutions and third party testing facilities in Europe, North America and Asia under confidentiality agreements. Many of these organizations were provided a small amount of purified graphite material produced at SGS Canada Inc. (‘SGS’). This testing does not represent a statistically large sample size. Furthermore, these positive results do not mean that Zenyatta can extract and process Albany graphite for high purity graphite applications on an economic basis. Without a formal independent feasibility study, there is no assurance that the operation will be economic.
 
Focus Graphite Inc. and Grafoid Inc. Finalize Two Defnitive, 10-Year Offtake Agreements for Lac Knife Graphite Concentrate


OTTAWA, ONTARIO - September 25, 2015 - OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwired – September 25, 2015) - Focus Graphite Inc., (TSX VENTURE:FMS) (OTCQX:FCSMF) (FRANKFURT:FKC) ("Focus" or the "Company") an advanced exploration and development mining company and sole owner of the high-grade Lac Knife, Québec natural flake graphite deposit, is pleased to announce it has finalized two definitive offtake agreements with Grafoid Inc., a graphene application development company, and a related party.

The first offtake agreement (the "Graphene Offtake," formerly the “Energy Offtake”) commits Grafoid to acquire, at its discretion, up to an annual maximum of 1,000 tonnes of high-purity (98.3% total carbon "Ct")(1) large flake (+80 mesh) graphite concentrate annually from the Lac Knife Project for 10 years, representing up to 6.8% of the projected annual production of 14,606 tonnes of high-purity large flake concentrate. (Taken from Technical Report on The Lac Knife Graphite Feasibility Study.)

(1) 98.3% Ct purity is the average of 6 pilot plant runs. The pilot plant program was completed in 2013 by SGS Canada Inc., located in Lakefield, Ontario. See news release dated August 21, 2013.

The second offtake agreement (the "Polymer Offtake") commits Grafoid to acquire, at its discretion, up to 25,000 tonnes of 97.8% Ct (average concentrate grade for all flake sizes) graphite concentrate annually from the Lac Knife Project for 10 years, representing up to 56.4% of the projected total annual production of 44,300 tonnes (all flake sizes). (Taken from Technical Report on The Lac Knife Graphite Feasibility Study.)

Mr. Gary Economo, Chief Executive Officer of Focus Graphite, announced the two companies have finalized terms for two offtake agreements and that Focus has received the first of 12 scheduled payments from Grafoid as per each agreement schedule.

“These agreements are the culmination of Focus Graphite’s long-held strategic business vision that looked towards selling Lac Knife’s high grade, high purity graphite into future high value technology markets,” said Mr. Economo.

“And the future is represented by a small but significant flake graphite mining deposit on the road to development in the Northern Quebec community of Fermont,” he said.

“These agreements assure Grafoid with a secure supply of graphite to meet its customer requirements for graphene, while Focus benefits from long-term revenue streams,” Mr. Economo said.

Grafoid is a Canadian graphene research and development company that invests in the development of industrial-scale graphene applications and technologies, in partnership with major global corporations and academic institutions. Grafoid's graphene products are developed under the trade name of Mesograf™.

Focus holds 7,800,000 Grafoid common shares valued at US$39 million.(2)
 
Oggi, dopo molto tempo ho guardato le quotazioni delle mie aziende della grafite: un vero massacro, siamo quasi all'estinzione della specie.
Se non risale il prezzo della grafite, va a finire male.
 
Zenyatta Ventures and Ballard Power Systems Initiate Project Using Albany Graphite in Fuel Cell Technology

Thunder Bay, ON
21 October 2015

Zenyatta Ventures Ltd. (“Zenyatta” or “Company”) (TSXV: ZEN) is pleased to announce the initiation of a project with Ballard Power Systems Inc. (“Ballard”) (TSX: BLD; Nasdaq: BLDP) utilizing high purity Albany graphite in the membrane electrode assembly (“MEA”) of a fuel cell. MEA is a critical component of the Proton Exchange Membrane (“PEM”) fuel cell that must meet exacting performance standards for the fuel cell to work properly.

Primary objectives of this work are:
• Incorporate Albany graphite in the gas diffusion layer (“GDL”) components of a fuel cell; • Evaluate the Albany graphite material in Ballard manufacturing processes;
• Evaluate performance of Albany graphite in anode & cathode GDL designs and compare against existing available commercial materials;
In a news release dated 12 August 2015, Zenyatta announced testing results by Ballard that samples of Albany graphite demonstrated high thermal and corrosion resistance properties. A first step screening process on Albany graphite material confirmed its suitability for use in the bipolar plate (“BPP”) and gas diffusion layer (“GDL”) for fuel cells. High thermal stability and corrosion resistance is critical in the performance of these components in fuel cells.
The current project phase will advance our collaboration to the next level through evaluation of the Albany graphite material in sub-components of fuel cells, including performance and manufacturability in established Ballard processes.
Ballard will develop prototype components for both cathode and anode GDLs incorporating Zenyatta material and evaluate the layer function for optimal water management and gas diffusion properties. Ballard will provide a detailed technical report including evaluation and analysis of the material compared against commercial designs.
Dr. Bharat Chahar, VP, Market Development, Zenyatta, commented “This is the next major step in qualifying Zenyatta graphite in a high growth and high value application. We are extremely pleased to be working with a world fuel cell leader like Ballard on use of our graphite for this cleantech market.”
 
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