Haydale - Page 18

Haydale (based in the UK and owned by ICL from May 2011) plans to raise £10 million (about $16.6 million) via an IPO on the UK's AIM. Besides funding the company's regular operations (based around its proprietary plasma technology and graphene commercialization process), the money could also be used for acquisition purposes or to form strategic alliances. The market value of the company will probably be in the low £30 million range ($50 million).

Haydale hopes that the IPO will take place in mid-April. If Haydale's plans go through, this will be the third graphene company to list in the UK. First up was Cientifica (which recently failed to raise more funds) and Applied Graphene Materials. Another AIM company, Graphene NanoChem is also involved with graphene.

Haydale announced that it listed its HDPlas range of graphene (and CNT) materials for trade on the INSCX exchange, a global marketplace for nanomaterials and nanocommodities. The company appointed Fullerex as Haydale's agent.

INSCX is used by both researchers and commercial companies to purchase nanomaterials and products.

Back in June 2013, Haydale (owned by ICL from May 2011) announced that it developed metal-free graphene-based inks. Haydale, established in 2003 with strong links with Swansea University, is developing and marketing carbon materials under the HDPlas brand. The company currently focuses on graphene, CNTs and zinc nanomaterials. Ray Gibbs, ICL's Commercial Directory was kind enough to update us on Haydale's new inks and more aspects of their business and technology.

Haydale developed their own Split-Plasma process to convert mined graphite ore into functionalised graphene flakes (nanoplatelets). This scalable and environmentally friendly method is claimed to be significantly quicker and substantially more cost efficient than other methods. Split-Plasma does not damage the materials and can be controlled to provide appropriate functionalisation levels that are not restricted to the chemical groups associated with other "wet" chemistry processing methods. One of its unique characteristics is that the process can (and has) been used to functionalise synthetically produced graphene materials.

Haydale announced that it has developed new metal-free graphene-based inks. The HDPlas Graphene Ink Sc213 can be used to commercialize smart packaging, printed batteries, sensors, flexible displays (OLEDs and e-paper) and touch screens.

Haydale developed the new inks in collaboration with specialist ink manufacturer Gwent Electronic Materials (GEM). Those inks have been optimized for ideal viscosity and solid contents ensuring excellent coverage and exceptional conductivity. The inks are fully customisable and can be modified with development partners for specific requirements.

Lux Research released a new report (Is Graphene the Next Silicon ... Or Just the Next Carbon Nanotube?) on the graphene market, in which they forecast that the graphene market will grow to $126 million in 2020 (up from $9 million in 2012). It's an impressive growth - but the overall market will remain small. Most of the growth will come from graphene nanoplatelets (NGP) for the composites and energy storage applications. Graphene sheets will remain mostly in the lab.

According to Lux, the leading companies will be XG Sciences and Vorbeck Materials. Vorbeck is selling higher margin conductive inks, while XG supplies GNPs to corporate channel partners. Regarding newer startups (such as Graphene Technologies, Grafoid, National Nanomaterials, Xolve and Haydale), Lux says it is simply too early to tell.

Haydale announced that Cheap Tubes Inc. (CTi) will act as its exclusive agent for the supply of the Haydale HDPlas nano products in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. HDPlas are Graphene Nano Platelets (GNP) powders made from mined graphite crystal (using Haydale's unique patented Split Plasma based technology. CTi will also supply Haydale's Split Plasma treated Carbon Nano Tubes.