Hydrograph Conference @ Advanced Materials Show, NEC Birmingham 8th July 2026

[00:00:00]in solution. They don't want to have to change anything about their existing processes. Um they don't want to have to buy new complimentary equipment to be able to use graphine. You want to have kind of um low barrier to entry. The second thing is uh making sure that the product is actually practical and affordable for commercial use. So it's great having something that works in the lab, but it needs to um it be practical when this is scaled up. So being able to productionize it. And thirdly is really making sure that we are able to deliver excellent performance which is consistent and reliable. And so these are the three things that shaped everything about how we went about developing the product and testing it.

[00:00:40]And I'm going to walk you through how we've addressed each one of these with this new product the fractal graphine based.

[00:00:49]So firstly in terms of ease of use. So this is fundamentally the main reason why we went about developing a a dispersion in the first place.

[00:01:01]Um the graphine dispersions is not really a new concept. They been around for a while and they exist for good reason. So some of the benefits of having graphine supplied in a dispersion as opposed to a powder is essentially you provide the material in format that's ready to use. you um avoid the kind of challenges with mixing graphine essentially.

[00:01:28]Um graphine like other kind of nanom materials is quite challenging to be able to mix into other materials. So one of the amazing things about nanop particles is they have really high surface area to volume ratio. But if you've got all of that material lomerated together, you've not really got that surface area accessible and so you won't get the benefits and properties out of the material. So dispersion is really really critical.

[00:01:54]It's one of the most important parts about actually applying nanom materials like graphine. Um and so by providing the graphine in a format that's basically ready to go, you completely eliminate that at the customer site.

[00:02:10]You also with uh powders you've got quite a low volt density material and it can be difficult to dose it. So with a a liquid dispersion dosing can become more precise and that means that you've got a much greater confidence on the exact proportions of graphine in your formulation.

[00:02:28]The other benefit with having uh a paste or dispersion as opposed to powder is with powders you essentially have a dust forming material. And so like all dust forming materials you need to then limit exposure to the the workers. Um typically you do that with engineering controls. So making sure you've got relevant air extraction and ventilation and also personal protective equipment.

[00:02:52]And that's completely eliminated with uh using a um graphine in the form of a predispersion.

[00:03:00]And then as I say, a lot of the graphine material is quite low bulk density. So if you're storing and shipping these, you're essentially shipping around lots of air. And so it's more um efficient if you've got this in a um wetted dispersion um and reduces the uh cost of that logistics.

[00:03:23]So what kind of graphine dispersions are already out there in the market? Uh it's quite well known that graphine disperses in a whole bunch of solvents. So materials like NMP which is widely used in the battery industry, um DMF and IPA and so on and so forth and these are quite widely available.

[00:03:42]Also graphine can disperse into whole bunch of resin systems. So again you're working with uh liquid resins like epoxies. These are also possible with graphine using enough uh high shear.

[00:03:57]But really when you look at graphine dispersions in water, this is kind of where things get interesting and where we saw the opportunity particularly as it relates to this second need in the market, which is really making sure that the graphine dispersion is practical for commercial use. And when you look at what's available today, uh, graphine dispersions tend to struggle with achieving high concentration and high stability at the same time. You can typically have one or the other, but not both. And that really limits how practical and economical it could be in commercial application.

[00:04:33]So there's a whole bunch of um products and processes in industry that use water obviously.

[00:04:42]um applying graphine into water is really quite difficult and it's mainly because graphine pristine graphine especially is hydrophobic so fundamentally it's incompatible water it doesn't want to be in water so mixing it um it's tricky what the graphine will want to do is relocate and then it will settle out and so trying to incorporate this in a way where you've got a good concentration good stability is uh non impossible unless you do something to modify the dispersion. And so couple of workarounds that are typically used is one option is to use stabilizers. So you've got subactants and and polymer stabilizers, but with graphine conventional graphine materials at least, you tend to have to use quite a lot of surant. And what that does is it really hinders the graphine properties. So you won't realize the full performance of the graphine material and all this potential in the final application. We got so much packact or polymer dispersing in there.

[00:05:48]The other way around this is to functionalize graphine. So we're essentially doing is altering the surface chemistry. And by doing this you can improve the affinity of graphine with water. An example of this being graphine oxide which has a high degree of oxygen containing species on the surface and that helps to improve the dispersability in water. But ultimately what you're doing there is you're changing the uh structure of the graphine. So that inevitably changes the properties of the graphine.

[00:06:23]So these are kind of a bit of a um trade-off really that exists in the market where you can get a stable dispersion but um really with not great concentration or you can get a big concentration but it won't be very stable for very long and that really limits its use for practical commercial application.

[00:06:46]So if you don't really have um those attributes it it um makes it not feasible. So this is exactly the challenge that we set out to try to solve.

[00:06:58]And then the final consideration really in terms of what the market need and what customers are telling us they want is great performance but delivered consistently and reliably. And for for this requirement it's incredibly important to look at the actual graphine that's being used in the dispersion. And um I'll explain in uh this slide how we've gone about addressing that as well. So yeah, the quality of the graphine really matters in general in the graphine market. There's a well-known kind of challenge you could say or issues with graphine quality and has been for the last several years. So graphine as it's like defined in the ISO definitions you can have a single uh atom thick layer of carbon which is single layer graphine. You can have a few layer graphine up to 10 layers. Um anything beyond that is essentially graphite but the fine graphite you're working with the properties um much more similar to graphite to kind of frame. So really for a two-dimensional material, as graphine is known, you need something that's um 10 layers or less.

[00:08:09]The problem with the way graphine is produced, the way it has been for the last several years, is most companies are basically taking graphite and they're trying to exfoliate it. So they're trying to put in lots of energy and break apart the graphite to make graphine. But these processes are all very very cumbersome. Um they're all really imprecise and so getting good process control is n impossible. you essentially end up with um a lot of products in the market that not really containing much graphine at all. So by this measure, you really have um a lot of material that contains mostly fine graphite. It's difficult to get down to that two-dimensional regime when you're exfoliating graphite. You also get issues with the particle size uh variability. So there's a lot of variation in terms of the lateral dimensions and also the um the bigness of the graphine materials when they're produced through these conventional techniques. You get a whole bunch of impurities as well um that are also um uh included depending on the particulars of the different production processes.

[00:09:21]And so um what what this means is like the actual performance of your dispersion if you're using a low quality graphine is going to impact the performance of the dispersion. So um this is this is really um why we're able to differentiate our dispersion products because of the material that we start off with. So we use our graphine which is produced by chamber destination synthesis um gives us extremely high purity material uh very consistently and this is our fractal graphine paste. So introducing the product we've been able to address the three needs in the market for ease of use for having something that's practical for commercial scale and something that delivers consistent and reliable performance. And I'll explain why this product is genuinely different by talking you through some of the features.

[00:10:17]We have a 20% concentration uh of graphine in the paste um which is a lot higher than typically you find with water-based dispersions.

[00:10:29]Combined with this though crucially we have really good stability. So the uh shelf stable for more than 2 years typically in industry customers are looking for at least 12 months. So we we go well beyond that and this is down to the zita potential we're able to achieve. It's a highly highly stable dispersion despite the high concentration.

[00:10:52]This has been completely the aggregate that we make the fractal graphine aggregate has been totally broken down as primary particles. Um and we have a very small particle size with our graphine is 20 to 50 nanometers and in in the paste in our dispersion uh we have a um medium particle size of 35 nm.

[00:11:12]So it's a really ultra fine material.

[00:11:16]Even though we call it paste, it's also flammable and porable as well. So you can really easily handle this and dose it and disperse it.

[00:11:26]And uh crucially we we use very little amount of um stabilizer in here. So we retain um a lot of the graphing performance when this gets used in the in the end application.

[00:11:41]So customers don't need to use new expensive equipment or kind of complimentary innovations.

[00:11:48]um really lowers the barrier to entry and as I say this is produced from our fractal graphine aggregate so this is a you might call it synthetic graphine we don't use graphite as our starting material so we have really excellent process control basically have identical product batch to batch and within batches the particle size is really consistent and uniform and it's the highest carbon purity product on the market purity is not carbon content, it's crystallinity, and it's the number of layers to make sure it's actually graphine.

[00:12:26]As I say, back to match identical material.

[00:12:32]And this is really used for any kind of water-based system. Um, and as I'll show you in the next slide, this kind of opens up a whole range of different applications that we could address.

[00:12:43]So the main markets that we are targeting for this product um we've already started sampling customers in is the cement and concrete market for one.

[00:12:52]So this is by far and away probably the biggest opportunity in general for graphine. Um we're looking mostly at the pre-cast concrete market which is about $9 billion in total addressable market for this base product. Um included in that are some specialty applications like oil well cementing and um as I'll show you in the next few slides what we've been seeing is is really quite impressive with uh the the concrete performance. We also um are targeting the coolant market. So there's a lot of demand at the moment with the investment in data centers and uh keeping the um chips cool as the power uh rating of these systems goes up is a real bottleneck that the industry is trying to solve and we're able to deliver improvement in the uh coolant performance. Protective coatings um is another significant market. We're looking predominantly at the water-based coating segment, but it still represents a um a large market for us of a quarter of a billion dollars. Um again, we're mostly looking at this for protecting high value assets, reducing the amount of um uh cost that's associated with maintenance, reducing um the um uh corrosion creep with the the coatings that are enhanced with graphine and also in elastimus as well. So this is again another opportunity we see where most of these products are based on a kind of latex or NBR which is a water-based system and we can help customers make more durable products um and also systems that are using less elastim so having lightweight and downging potential.

[00:14:38]Give you an example of some of the performance that we've been seeing with the ACE already. So in elastimas really starting from very low concentrations as little as 0.01 01% of our graphine.

[00:14:48]We're able to improve the strength, toughness, and stiffness of uh the material. Uh get nice double digit improvements using.1% of our graphine.

[00:15:01]As I say, basically allowing for longer service life, lighter kind of formulations.

[00:15:06]Um and then in concrete what we've been seeing is uh testing in mortar um big improvements in the compressive strength and also flexual strength both at early age and and late age concrete and mortar excuse me and um in concrete we got some really um really interesting results. What we've been achieving is essentially a big increase in early age strength. So using as little as 01% we're able to improve the early age strength by uh 24%.

[00:15:45]And we're also able to reduce the amount of cement in the mix. So even when we reduce 20% of the cement in the concrete mix, we're still getting early age strength improvement and we're still delivering the same or better strength at the 28 days as well. So this for decarbonization is pretty much what the whole industry is looking for. Um and we managed to solve this problem of consistency um and delivery of the performance that graphine has the potential for in this application.

[00:16:18]And then finally in the the coolant space we're able to see improvement in thermal conductivity. So this is tested on static system. We're doing some more testing on dynamic systems here. But um yeah really with um relatively small concentrations again we can increase the thermal conductivity at room temperature um especially in propylene bipolar we've seen the big improvement 15% increase in thermal conductivity at higher temperatures as well which is particularly important.

[00:16:49]So a number of applications there it's not limited by those different uh use cases but those are the ones that we're predominantly focused on. we see the biggest need from the market for solutions.

[00:17:03]So in terms of um what we can really um suggest next if this is of interest for you if you're working on anything um that sounds like this could be relevant then yeah do come and see us. So we've got a booth um over that way in uh booth 342 and yeah we're sampling the material now so this is available for customers to test and um love to hear from you. on an application.

[00:17:30]Thank you very much.

[00:17:34]>> Thank you, Tom. Um, just a personal note, Tom and I have known each other since we started as the graphine council way back in 2013. So, this man knows exactly the trajectory of this.

[00:17:46]Hydrograph is a fantastic company.

[00:17:48]They're one of the verified graphine producers and actually have gone through the verification process twice. Uh, so the the second cycle. Um, does anybody have any questions for Tom in Hydro?

[00:18:00]Yes.

[00:18:04]Hi Tom. Two quick questions.

[00:18:07]What sort of price can you sell us at and where you trying to get to on price per kilo? And what capacity can you have on a manual basis to produce this?

[00:18:18]Yeah, we haven't publicly released the pricing for the pace, but um if you've got a particular application and there's a price ceiling that you want to hit, then we can have a discussion and figure out what what makes sense for that application.

[00:18:34]>> That's a that was a pretty direct question. Yeah, right there. That's awesome. Um just for people to think about with uh pricing for graphine materials because this does come up quite a bit and there's a lot of there's not a lot of transparency on pricing just because it's a new industry. It's it's not a lot of publicly priced but it depends a lot on the load factor and you know different graphing materials will be used at different load factors. So you can get a lot of variability in price but they'll be at different load factors. So what matters is the end price. Yeah, I mean the application.

[00:19:07]>> I totally we tend to talk more about the cost in use. That's really the factor that matters most to the the end customers.

[00:19:19]>> Can you hear me? Okay. Sorry about that.

[00:19:21]Uh so you said that actually graphine oxide is more soluble than graffine and water. So how do you test that the graffine you have in the paste is actually graphine and not graphine oxide?

[00:19:36]I mean was a question how do we test the stability or how do we test whether it's graphine or graphine oxide.

[00:19:40]>> How much is graffine oxide or >> yes well from determining what the the product is there's a bunch of different characterization techniques. So usually when you're characterizing graphine you're not relying on one particular measurement. So we'll do a bunch of different things. It'll be um you know XRD, XPS, ramen um these kind of techniques to tell us what our composition of the product is. Uh we we do have um our pristine uh graphine the FGA1 but we also provide a reactive graphing we call it which is a functionalized version. So we we can tell very clearly like what what the uh the differences between them in terms of like the oxygen content. So that that the reactive graphine has a caroxyic acid functional groups. But yeah, we we we characterize all that and put it it's all in our data sheets as well.

[00:20:30]>> Thank you.

[00:20:36]>> You uh mentioned that the graphine has theatic structure. What is the exact thermodynamic advantage of this structure in the preventing reglumeration within the matrix compared to the standard fib graphine? And furthermore, is the uh minus 45 m volts at a potential stable enough to withstand high shear mixing environments such as concert.

[00:21:01]>> Yeah. On on the on the high sheer mixing. So we found that all the customers that are using those techniques in the application that works well enough in the in the end like in fact one of our customers in concrete was doing eye share. whe whether that's needed or not. That might be a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but it it there's no damage to the graphine or the dispersion. When we dilute it down, typically what happens is cuz it's a concentrate, we dilute it down into like the mix water and then it gets added into the concrete mix. But we we don't see any degradation at all. Um the stability is the same when we dilute it, whether it's 20% or 1%. Um I think the other question was around the turboatic structure.

[00:21:45]>> So sorry what was what was the question again?

[00:21:48]>> Uh it was that what is the exact thermodynamic advantage of the structure in preventing regularation?

[00:21:55]>> I I would say it's probably mainly down to the particle size rather than the stratic nature. Um most graphine in the market is sort of like one micron to 10 microns lateral size. um with our particular material because it's 20 to 50 nanometers basically once it's once it's broken apart you kind of brownie in motion it's going to resist coming back together and relomerating uh more so than the kind of larger plate material >> oh in the elastimemer slides uh you show impressive mechanical increases uh such as 17.2% and 24%. What exactly do you do the control or zero loading samples represent on the slides?

[00:22:45]>> Um I we can send that to you. Yeah, if if you need to see the control material you can get the raw data and share that with many questions.

[00:22:58]>> Thank you. Anybody else have a question for Tom?

[00:23:05]Thank you. Uh nice presentation. I have the same question as the previous gentleman. Maybe you forgot to answer or you don't want answer. What's the current production capacity and what's the actual production? But you can decline to answer that.

[00:23:19]>> Yeah. I mean on the on the production capacity um we got the machines to make 30 tons per year. Um in terms of questions around you know how much we're producing now um we publish our inventory figures in the uh quarterly earnings report. So that information will be there. I can't give you I can't give you a week toe uh figure on that.

[00:23:46]So Hydrograph is a public company so there will be some forwardlooking statements these kind of things. They have to be careful about what they disclose. Um I don't know Tom if you want to mention it but Hydrograph you are building a new production facility in Texas that that's coming online. Um do you want to make any comments about that because that's some additional capacity you guys are going to have.

[00:24:05]>> Yeah so the the um technology came out of Kansas State University. So we had our production in Kansas but we've recently relocated our headquarters to Austin, Texas. Um we also announced that yeah we're building a a separate facility which will handle production.

[00:24:21]So yeah, over the next couple years that should take us into several hundreds of tons.

[00:24:27]>> Excellent. Any other questions?

[00:24:31]>> Okay, one more.

[00:24:37]>> Hi, thanks very much. Um, you mentioned that um you have certified graphine uh in your piece, right? So I was wondering what's the uh the blank um in the number of layers um in the past.

[00:24:51]>> Yeah, we we have um a few layer graphine. So there three to nine layers, an average of six layers.

[00:24:58]>> Thank you.

[00:25:01]>> Okay. Any last takers for a question for Tom or Hydroraph?

[00:25:06]>> Yes.

[00:25:10]Yeah. Uh so did you try a conductive ink at application >> with your paste?

[00:25:15]>> Is that electrical conductivity?

[00:25:17]>> Yeah, we we do get electrical conductivity out of the paste. We haven't really um prioritize that as one of the the selling points though. And the reason for that is that we have uh other strategies for advancing electrical responsibility. It's probably not really much of a secret like in most of the literature tend to get best performance when you use a hybrid system. So combinations of uh graphine and other kind of conductive garments.

[00:25:41]So we've seen a huge synergistic effect with our graphine when we combine it with say conductive carbon black or graphite um through carbon fiber and that that seems to be the far better strategy when it comes to conductivity.

[00:25:56]Um so we we we have been working on that a lot. Um lot of customer projects on that and um yeah if that's of interest we can discuss it. It'll be one of the great things about armature in general tend to use quite low loadings compared to other graphine and we we wanted to get that same benefit in all applications. So for conductivity we found when we use a very very small amount we can get this big boost in in uh conductivity and lower the overall carbon content even lower cost. So it it that's definitely the way to go for conductive applications.

[00:26:36]Um just wondering on the mechanical property benefits. You mentioned improvements in tensile strength for example. You looked at other properties such as abrasion resistance, resilience, anything else mechanical other than what you stated in your presentation.

[00:26:51]>> Yeah, that's a great great question. So we have we have looked at some um uh some friction and wear um type of things and scratch resistance as well. So abrasion, you know, we worked on this across some coating and plastics applications and we do see big improvement in wear. Uh we also see an improvement in in friction as well.

[00:27:10]Different at different loading levels, you get different benefits though. So it's a bit of a balancing act, but yeah, definitely those are >> Thank you. Okay. Anybody else?

[00:27:23]Well, from the Advanced Carbon Council, I want to thank you. Hydrograph is a verified company. They've also got