Versarien Share Discussion Threads

[rogerbridge] 06/3/2017 08:27

Topped up earlier

[billbyrne] 06/3/2017 08:26

Got mine also :-)

[superg1] 06/3/2017 08:20

Anley

Did you get any, I know you have been waiting for this option.

Timbo you were too did you take the opportunity?

[shavian] 06/3/2017 08:19

Got mine too :0)

[superg1] 06/3/2017 08:18

Just Arden left of the offer the others have gone to 18.

Edit on their own it was only seconds so a case of wait and see now.

[luckyorange] 06/3/2017 08:12

Posted on other side, more detail on printing and graphene using this process 100g/litre

[superg1] 06/3/2017 08:08

Aha


Got in on my bid so nice to feel like a proper shareholder than the usual paper trade route.

[superg1] 06/3/2017 08:07

I'm guessing the remnants of City F will spin through and then the shares will go tight. Imo there should be under 1 mill left by that route.

EDIT

That said Peel the usual suspects are not on the offer.

[luckyorange] 06/3/2017 08:01

It's a wonder Dyson haven't picked up on it , if they can spend £50 mill on a hairdryer a bit of Nanene in their plastics will noticeably reduce the weight of their products. They must know because of their presence at the NGI ?

I assume that the machine/s they are purchasing are quite an upgrade that do the job significantly faster?

Once the ball starts rolling manufacturers will start to wake up, they wouldn't want to be left behind, would they?

[superg1] 06/3/2017 07:09

So 50% oversubscribed near 24 hours before the deadline. Now it's case of waiting to see who has got some and who hasn't.

Clearly the demand and enquiries they are seeing post Nanene launch is the driver. No doubt the potential end users realise that Nanene (NGI cerytified) isn't some hype pile of junk that most try to sell as graphene.

[superg1] 06/3/2017 06:34

Hmmmmm I was curious about the performance enhancement claims so looked up the asterisk marker.

* Source: Strength Improvements in Toughened Epoxy Composites using Surface Treated GnPs, R. J. Zaldivar et al, Published in the Journal of Applied Polymer
Science 22 April 2014, DOI: 10.1002/app.40802

It seems that is just picking out a general report from the web on the topic rather than specific performance of the product advertised.

Very useful as a disclaimer those asterisks.

[superg1] 06/3/2017 06:22

Timbo

re the relation of m2 per gram to layer level which is what I use as an indicator. I use that indicator if companies do not specify layer level. Layer level is highly important

Here is some Haydale funtionalised graphene and it's data sheet via Goodfellow.



The range is 10-100 layer/ That is not a reflection on Haydale as it won't be their GNPs they don't produce any.

The guidance is the average is less than 50 layer and the m2 per gram is listed as
Approximately 20 m2/g

Thomas Swann GNPs in their data sheet is shown as 30m2 - 50m2.

XG sciences suggest few layer is 750 m2/g. They give other numbers too which match the layer levels represented.

So those are the guidelines I use. So on that basis as the Thomas Swann pdf doesn't state layer level I'm going by the m2/g as a guide.

[superg1] 06/3/2017 06:08

One company was claiming being able to separate thin ones from thick ones and so I had a dig through found some dubious comments. To my surprise via email they admitted they could only get to research and internal test amounts with no apparent performance results to date, no real layer level mentioned either. However if you read their news they are world conquering. As they are a public company I am in no mood to name them and end up in a investor spat over that one.

But their comment which investors are unaware of

"we have sufficient graphene production capacity to cover our sales of graphene as research material that we sell and satisfy our needs for internal R&D"

Nice for a bit of honesty really but I had closed the options down so that's why I was surprised to get a reply.

They commented further which is a point I raise.

They said there is much misinformation out there due to lack of standards currently (pot, kettle, black) but add that dispersion is key and is of equal or greater importance.

You can have a great product but you don't have the tech to disperse it then it's useless. Equally if you have carp product then it doesn't matter how good your dispersion is it won't work.

On qualification of what is the graphene they say it's determined by suitable end use.

That's why I keep mentioning few layer is the only graphene that transforms the strength of composites and multi-layer does not.

It may be that for thermal multi-layer is suitable and has a lower cost.

[superg1] 06/3/2017 05:58

Can anyone show me commercial levels of 1-5, probable averages of 2-3 level on a commercial scale.

Why ask?

Well because that's what VRS seem to be entirely concentrating on. It gives a higher performance than 5-10. That's what the tests were on.

The world is trying to get to as few layers as possible as the lower you go the greater the performance and options.

[superg1] 06/3/2017 05:43

SN

Yes we all know your thoughts. I think very poorly of some you are in but I'm not going to mention them. You clearly don't understand this one imo. And while you can say what you like with no idea on some parts which I could blow out of the water I have to stay quiet just like I did re the website launch.

Timbo

I make no secret of those I think are possibly in the game and others show m2 per gram in the same range that match the layer levels they suggest (EG XG sciences). In simple terms if you glue matching pieces of paper to each other then the surface area halves.

I have seen that the Thomas Swann claim and noted that pdf recently I also note they list suitable uses based on lateral size not thickness or layers. I think it's unusual that they haven't listed the thickness by layers as that is generally what everyone is looking for hence the interest in that area

There is room for all when the demand is set to be 30,000 tonnes plus within years IF it can be commercially produced.

I see you have thrown in the functionalised word gain and once again I can assure you funtionalisation isn't needed in many cases. EG check out the graphene ink paper and news by Cambridge.

RE the noon comment. I've heard that too. Now based on that and that the market should be completely unaware look what happened to the share price driven by MMs just before noon.

Sn

So if Henderson do come in and go via Primarybid then I assume you are going to fall off your chair as that would never happen.

[timbo003] 05/3/2017 23:50

>>>>SN

I believe that the offer was put out to private client brokers before it was made available to Primary Bid. I received an email from my broker timed at 9:51 (UK time) on Friday which I am fairly certain concerned the Versarien offer/placing. The email informed clients that the offer closed at noon on Friday, I could not request further details as I'm currently in Las Vegas and it arrived in my inbox at 1:51 local time on Friday morning.

[timbo003] 05/3/2017 23:30

A couple more thoughts:

I would not put too much emphasis on surface area per se as a measure of quality, or a proxy measure for number of layers in a sample of GNPs

GNPs can be considered to consist of two types of carbon atoms: those which are bonded via SP2 hybridization and those which are not. SP2 hybridized carbon atoms are probably largely responsible for the wonder material properties of Graphene. The non-SP2 hybridized carbon atoms are those at the platelet terminals, they are no doubt reactive (and easily functionalized).

If the micronisation process results in GNPs which are only a few nm in each direction (x, y and z) then the ratio of SP2 carbon atoms to other carbon atoms is likely to be reduced compared to GNPs which have the same layer thickness (z) but larger dimensions in length and breath (x and y), thus looking at surface area in isolation will not necessarily give an indication of number of layers or GNP quality.

Furthermore, surface area estimates are very dependent on the methods used for their determination, so quoting a surface area value without reference to how it was measured can lead to very misleading conclusions.

[luckyorange] 05/3/2017 23:23

'A: Price comes down with volume, the client looked at other suppliers and chose us even though the price was at a small premium to other quotes (NR didn’t state what criteria were used for that: it could be quality, speed, or other). The amount we supplied was more than 250g, but less than 1Kg. As far as we are aware this is the largest delivered UK order for Graphene, but having said that, we don’t really know what is happening with the unquoted companies (such as Thomas Swan) as they do not have reporting requirements.'

Nobody arguing with you timbo, competition is good , however, Thomas Swan didn't supply that one VRS did, reason why they chose VRS unknown , that says something not sure what though!

[timbo003] 05/3/2017 22:59

I would not underestimate the capabilities of Thomas Swan or the quality of their GNPs, see my notes from the recent Shares Magazine investor evening:


Assuming that few layers is an important attribute for a number of GNP applications, this particular grade of Elicarb from Thomas Swan seems to fit the bill:




NR acknowledged at the Shares Mag meeting in February, that it was difficult/impossible to know exactly what the capabilities were for Thomas Swan and other unquoted companies in the UK and abroad as they did not have the same reporting requirements as the quoted Graphene suppliers.

[luckyorange] 05/3/2017 22:53

'Sadly there isn't a cat in hell's chance we'll see much of that.'

So you are invested then sn, or just a trade maybe!

[supernumerary] 05/3/2017 22:19

sg - I don't think it works like that. Clearly the first chunk of the million goes to pay the advisers. The second chunk (by far the biggest I would guess) goes to WH Ireland ['The fundraising comprises an institutional placing by WH Ireland (the "Placing")'], and the leftovers are thrown to the rest of the world via PrimaryBid. There is no way Henderson would lower themselves to compete on equal terms with PIs. Never happen.

It would be interesting to know:
- what proportion of the raise went via PB and what proportion went to WHI
- how much of the PB tranche went to existing shareholders and how much to new investors
- what fees were paid and to whom, including payments between the various parties.

Sadly there isn't a cat in hell's chance we'll see much of that.

All this discussion is of course predicated on the assumption that this is a good investment, a question on which I am, to say the least, less convinced than other posters here.

[superg1] 05/3/2017 20:47

The KLF

They haven't had chance to do a lot yet but it seems already due to enquiries they are saying "We need a bigger boat".

From the breakthrough news to proving performance, product launch and now expansion of capacity, it's only been 8 months, so they have quietly steamed ahead.

[theklf] 05/3/2017 20:38

I think VRS will do enough in the public domain to become recognised as de facto standard and keep the special sauce secret. Even within VRS they keep it to a small number of employees. Once they've established the matrix of patentable products and processes they will be able to licence it to likes of Victrex which will provide immediate and scalable route to market.

[superg1] 05/3/2017 20:27

This gives a fair idea of the situation over 10 years down the line. News just a few weeks ago

Explosions may be the answer to mass-producing graphene



But if you read it the big leap was being able to get from milligrams to grams.

Vrs can take it from kgs to tonnes and 100's of tonnes. The tech will do that. If they were Samsung or the like they could upscale it this year to 100's or 1000's of tonnes. Demand and the cash to do that is the only thing stopping it. The demand is said to be there with the lack of a viable supply being a big hurdle. So now the supply issue is resolved for many uses (but few are aware) let's see where it goes over the next year or two as and when they become aware.

Back to the Hexcel declaration on graphene

Many claims are made for these materials
Little objective repeatable data is available
Their potential has sometimes been over-inflated

Hexcel’s objectives for nanomaterial investigations are:
 To retain an open mind
 To seek clear repeatable data that shows a cost effective benefit from
the nanomaterial
 To utilise these benefits in product development as fast as possible

"Hexcel now asks for evidence before evaluation"

So are Hexcel going to put their money where their mouth is or are they going to get steamrollered by someone that does.

Their PDF on the topic is in the header. I know I'd be knocking on their door.