Versarien Share Discussion Threads

[pcjoe] 07/10/2018 20:08

Just speculating but having just touched base with respected times financial journo, is it not possible that no ink wasted until the much anticipated business scoop/launch materialises - hopefully not too long now & the times will likely be pleased to have the inside track to vrs management & vice versa

[loglorry1] 07/10/2018 20:07

Ah good phew thanks serratia. That must be why they are producing nearly 100x as much of their GnP solution for sale than nanene then.

Joking aside though the idea that one GnP product is universally superior is just daft. It is completely dependent on the application.

Why did innov8 use a Graphene oxide developed with Manchester Uni and not Nanene? Because for that application that was the best.

Nanene may find a profitable niche somewhere but I don't believe for one moment it's the most superior universal GnP product out there which will put all the others out of business.

You guys are focusing too much on % number of layers. Ironically the nanene spec sheet uses a measurement technique, Raman, to infer this that's not even the one being proposed for the new ISO standard.

Just my opinion.

[spike_1] 07/10/2018 19:58

loglorry - exactly as I anticipated - totally unable to justify your 'fact':

From Spike:

Evidence please that they are selling it 'in quite large size' and more importantly, that it is providing worthwhile income (doesn't matter how much you sell if it doesn't make money).

Loglorry's answer:

Spike I've no wish to educate you on VRS competition. It's all out there if you care to look.

I expect XGS are just making 200mt of Graphene a year and popping it into a landfill don't you?


Just shows you log, how little you know about VRS's competition, and therefore how worthless your posts are.

Best wishes - Spike

Edit: signing off as now to cook a well marbled - hopefully good - short horn fillet, accompanied by what - so far - seems to be a good Grand Reserve Chateauneuf du Pape.

[serratia] 07/10/2018 19:53

There is evidence of XG's inferior performance in the public domain you just have to look and understand the science.

[psxtalks2u] 07/10/2018 19:52

A question to Neill just now on twitter...”@neillricketts I thought someone said there was going to be an article about @versarien in today’s Sunday Times ? Can’t find it“...........Neills reply....”I said I'd spoke to someone from the sunday times, it will come you just have to have a little patience”

[loglorry1] 07/10/2018 19:49

Spike I've no wish to educate you on VRS competition. It's all out there if you care to look.

I expect XGS are just making 200mt of Graphene a year and popping it into a landfill don't you?

I will accept that VRS have no issues selling nanene profitably because they aren't selling any! When they finally do maybe we can start to see what margins are like. Until then we can be sure that not selling any at all produces terrible net margins as there's no top line!

[spike_1] 07/10/2018 19:35

log: you say:
XG have ramped up production to 200mt/year and are selling it to their customers in quite large size

Evidence please that they are selling it 'in quite large size' and more importantly, that it is providing worthwhile income (doesn't matter how much you sell if it doesn't make money).

Best wishes - Spike

[loglorry1] 07/10/2018 19:16

Lol you guys are funny. I'm not telling anyone to buy or sell anything. I'm just saying there is no evidence to suggest that XG Sciences product is any worse (or better) than nanene except for one important difference.

XG have ramped up production to 200mt/year and are selling it to their customers in quite large size whereas nanene hasn't been sold despite 3 years of collaborations.

That's all just fact in the public domain.

One might expect XGS to be worth more than VRS but in actual fact the market has placed a valuation 10x higher on VRS. Bubble? Maybe maybe not.

[haz101] 07/10/2018 19:12

Whatever the spin on the article NR is keeping his cards close to his chest

[spike_1] 07/10/2018 18:49

Hi all,
Danger Blatant ramp

Neill has just posted this:

Neill Ricketts
I said I'd spoke to someone from the sunday times, it will come you just have to have a little patience

@joninwakey
@neillricketts I thought someone said there was going to be an article about @versarien in today’s Sunday Times ? Can’t find it 😒

Neill seems very sure (it seems to me) that this article will appear, this suggests he wants it to appear later. Which suggests something will change in the mean time, although Neill would have had to be very careful what he said to the ST.

I think it will relate to the Austin conference where there is a discussion entitled 'Standardisation - status' Monday 15th. Neill incidentally is on the Tuesday.

My thoughts are that IF they announce VRS has reached the 'required' USA Graphene Council accreditation standard, they may not be the only one (political), but it may well be that if others are also accredited, possibly for a different standard such as CVD, or if platelets, then to a lower/different (non strength / lightness) related standard.

BUT this is just guess work based on nothing more than logic.

Best wishes - Spike

[ellissj] 07/10/2018 18:11

Onone2.
Nanene is few layer graphene nano platelets (GNP). Over 10 layers is essentially graphite per proposed iso standards.

Graphene Oxide, is exfoliated Graphite Oxide and is typically defined as being one layer thick, per proposed iso standard. Again, multi layer is essentially Graphite Oxide.

Graphene GNP's retain similar characteristics of pristine graphene. Whereas, Graphene Oxide does not. And therefore they have different end uses. By further processing, Reduced Graphene Oxide (rgo) is produced which gives it the same qualities as pristine graphene, but in doing so it loses quality. Thus +nanene is preferred by Gnano in their battery tech than their likely RGO (Reduced graphene oxide). See the following quote from below article reproduced in full:-

"GO (graphene oxide) like graphene, comprises single-layer sheets of carbon. However, the chemical and physical properties of GO are markedly different from those of graphene. Unlike graphene (Figure 14.1(c), left), GO possesses a large number of oxygen-containing functional groups (Figure 14.1(c), right), which allows GO to be dispersed in solution [8, 15–18]. Furthermore, unlike graphene, which is an excellent electrical conductor, GO is insulating."

Quite a difference. Here's the full article.

"Graphene Oxide: Some New Insights into an Old Material

Kalyan Raidongia, ... Jiaxing Huang, in Carbon Nanotubes and Graphene (Second Edition), 2014

14.1 Introduction

Graphene oxide (GO), sheets of what is formerly known as graphite oxide or graphitic acid, is the oxidation product of graphite [1–4]. The oxidation of graphite has been studied for over a century, with the first instance carried out by B.C. Brodie in 1859 [1]. Typically, graphite reacts with strong oxidizing agents, such as KMnO4 as reported first by Hummers [3], and concentrated sulphuric acid, followed by purification and exfoliation in water, which results in a yellow colloidal dispersion (Figure 14.1(a)). Following the landmark discovery of graphene in 2004 [5,6], there has been resurgent interest in GO as a promising precursor for the large-scale chemical production of graphene [7–14]. GO, like graphene, comprises single-layer sheets of carbon. However, the chemical and physical properties of GO are markedly different from those of graphene. Unlike graphene (Figure 14.1(c), left), GO possesses a large number of oxygen-containing functional groups (Figure 14.1(c), right), which allows GO to be dispersed in solution [8, 15–18]. Furthermore, unlike graphene, which is an excellent electrical conductor, GO is insulating. Therefore, to restore some of the favourable electrical, mechanical and thermal properties of graphene, GO is commonly reduced by thermal annealing or chemical reducing agents [7–14]. The reduced product of GO is commonly termed as reduced graphene oxide (r-GO). Presently, the electrical conductivity of r-GO cannot match up to that of pristine graphene because the history of chemical treatment in r-GO renders its graphitic structure defective [8,19,20]. The disordered structure of GO can be seen with high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) (Figure 14.1(d)) [21].

The in-plane heterogeneity of GO and r-GO renders them very different chemical reactivity compared to graphene. For example, if graphene is mildly heated in air, combustion of carbon atoms would initiate from the edges given relatively smaller number of additional defect sites in the basal plane, then gradually shrinking the sheet before its complete disappearance [22,23]. However, for GO or r-GO, since they contain abundant defect sites distributed throughout the basal plane, gasification of carbon atoms would occur homogeneously across the full face of the sheet, leading to rapid fracturing into small pieces. For example, when GO sheets deposited on silicon wafer are steamed as shown in the schematic drawing in Figure 14.1(e), the initially continuous GO sheet would first develop pores and cracks, then turn into a network of interconnecting nano-sized particles, which finally broke into isolated dots upon further steaming (see atomic force microscopy (AFM) images in Figure 14.1(f)) [22]. While graphene consists of ordered sp2-bonded carbon, the structure of GO consists of a majority of disordered sp3-bonded carbon and a minority of ordered sp2-bonded carbon. The reduction process can convert some of the sp3-bonded carbon to sp2-bonded carbon, but the structure of pristine graphene is seldom fully recovered in r-GO. Nevertheless, the conductivity of r-GO is sufficient for many applications.

Beyond being a precursor to graphene, GO is an interesting material in its own right [24–27]. The abundance of chemical functionalities in GO sheets makes these sheets a highly versatile chemical platform for creating interesting graphene-based materials. Furthermore, with two abruptly different length scales, GO is an intermediate between materials and molecules. As shown in the AFM height profile (Figure 14.1(b)), the thickness of GO sheets is in the order of 1 nm, which is the typical length scale of molecules. On the other hand, the lateral length of GO is in the order of micrometres, which is the typical length scale of colloidal particles. Therefore, depending on the length scale in question, GO can be treated as a molecule or a colloidal sheet. This molecule–particle duality [24,26] makes GO interesting for both chemists and materials scientists. For example, we first proposed to view GO from a soft materials perspective and observed many interesting phenomena associated with it [24,26,27]. In this chapter, we present some new insights into the synthesis, characterization, processing–structure–property relationship and some new applications of this century-old material."

This is my laymans understanding. Aimo. Dyor. Best ellis.

[spike_1] 07/10/2018 18:07

onone2: if you look at many of the tweets on Neill's Twitter you will see Tim Kempster used to appear very often, almost always being critical of Neill and VRS. Nothing wrong in being critical BUT the answers Neill always gives shows just how wrong and knowingly miss-informed Kempster is.



As mentioned earlier loglorry1 IS Tim Kempster, and this article from the Sunday Times references Tim:



Be careful - Spike

[luckyorange] 07/10/2018 18:04

Onone, whatever you do don't invest in anything loglorry suggests , he is part of a team out there to take money from those who listen to them.

Also don't invest in anything including VRS unless you have done your homework, I am invested in VRS and wouldn't touch XGS with a bargepole.

[a_game] 07/10/2018 17:53

Loglorry (Tim Kempster) - quite rich coming from a man who has fallen for spin many times in his life - hxxps://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-low-risk-investments-that-are-putting-life-savings-in-danger-c5fd63fpdhx

Need we say more...

[zagrosfold] 07/10/2018 17:48

So why are 30+ chinese entities vying for vrs's product rather than all the other graphene companies? Why have large industrials come knocking on vrs's door rather than the others?

[loglorry1] 07/10/2018 17:44

onone2 - 3T a year but it's under 10 layer graphene it produces unlike the garbage all those other companies produce. Only nanene has the X factor.

------------
I'm afraid you've fallen for the spin. There is nothing to suggest Nanene is any better (or worse) than a lot of competing GnP products.

It's horses for courses. Different morphology, methods of mixing, pricing etc all come into it and different applications need a different mixture of these things.

At the end of the day the proof is in sales and VRS hasn't produced any material Graphene sales whereas competitors like XGS have and furthermore are scaling up their production much more rapidly.

It's possible VRS will do well but at £275m market cap it's got to deliver sales very quickly.

[ashehzi] 07/10/2018 17:30

LO, liked the wording "self imposed pressure".
NR says i know what you don't know. So bring it on.

[club sandwich] 07/10/2018 17:20

I imagine elastic bands will be quite a way down the road: graphene will have to come down in price very significantly - and therefore have been commoditised - before it will be cheap enough to make it worthwhile.Personally I'm looking at (hopefully) nearer-term high-value applications such as batteries and composites, to name but two...

[spike_1] 07/10/2018 17:10

onone2: Re your: unbreakable engine cam belt or a unbreakable elastic band would be a good entry point and more feasible to bring to the market

NO, I'm afraid they fall - to me - in the same category as running shoes and headphones.

We can do A LOT better than that, and by a factor of 1,000,000 / 1, on our first big deal just for starters.

I strongly suggest you do a little homework when you have the time to grasp the true potential here.

A little light reading to begin with: VRS RNS's:

Others here can fill you in on the likely identity of the un-named multi-nationals.

Best wishes - Spike

[tom thumb] 07/10/2018 17:09

I look forward to the day when graphene is being used in elastic bands as we will all be a little a little richer by then, bring on the days when we can buy graphene bands

[club sandwich] 07/10/2018 17:02

Melf - very helpful, many thanks for that.

[onone2] 07/10/2018 16:31

spike i get your drift, a unbreakable engine cam belt or a unbreakable elastic band would be a good entry point and more feasible to bring to the market,

what ideas do the board have for graphene, to bring to market ?

[spike_1] 07/10/2018 16:22

Re: pshevlin

Anyone seen the video on Graphene in the FT? Haydale and Innov-8 mentioned along the GEIC but NOTHING about VRS. Getting to be really irritating and giving a sense that the communication side of management is not doing its job.

Much as I understand your frustration, the only product we can shout about is a running shoe which isn't out yet, headphones that are not out yet, graphene in batteries that aren't out yet.

Everything else is potential. Amazing potential, but at this stage, only if you really understand graphene.

Graphene almost has a bad name for being no more than just potential. When we get noticed, we want to get really noticed, and running shoes and headphones don't do it for me I'm afraid.

However, readers will be far more impressed with something that has actually happened, and that will be soon, and hopefully it will be big. We need to make a splash to make a difference.

IMO it won't be long now.

Best wishes - Spike

[melf] 07/10/2018 16:09

CS....rather than babble on...here is the answer to your SIPP question:https://www.moneywise.co.uk/work-family/pay-less-tax/can-my-sipp-be-passed-to-my-beneficiaries-free-inheritance-tax

[onone2] 07/10/2018 16:03

what a lovely situation to be."no competition" my take is over 10 layers is graphene under 10 layer is nanene !

hexotene will certainly be a market leader with the advancement of science with the hydro energy

still it leaves me pondering with the thought,over 10 layers will be classed as graphene and may be used for

battery`s ect,and nanene under 10 layers may be used for the finer produce,such as film,inks or for medical

purposes & versarien may charge a premium

atb