990-tonne bulk sample ready for processing by end of March
Zenyatta Ventures, owner of the Albany graphite project near Hearst and the Constance Lake First Nation in Northeastern Ontario, changed its name to Zen Graphene Solutions in January to better reflect the company’s decision to focus its development plans on the graphene nano-material product opportunity.
Zen Graphene is actively collaborating with 22 industrial end users and 10 Canadian universities to research applications for graphene.
Discovered in 2004, graphene is a thin flake of carbon just one atom thick. Unique because of its strength and ability to conduct heat, it can be infused in concrete, plastic, aluminum, resins and rubber to make them stronger, lighter, and both thermally and electrically conductive.
The company’s high purity graphite has been found to exfoliate into graphene easier than most other sources of graphite and has been tested by researchers in Japan, Israel, the UK, Canada and the U.S. for a wide variety of applications.
Working with Constance Lake First Nation and Nuna Logistics, Zen Graphene built an ice road to the site 30 kilometres north of the Trans-Canada Highway in January with plans to begin taking a bulk sample in February.
The planned 990-tonne bulk sample will produce 40 tonnes of precursor graphite material for processing into graphene.
The goal, said co-CEO Francis Dubé, is to have graphene in commercial quantities by September 1. The material will then be available for price discovery and testing by industrial and research partners.
“Graphene is emerging as the most promising new material in modern times for enhancing the mechanical, electrical and thermal properties of materials used in a broad range of industrial applications,” stated the company in a press release dated January 15. “New innovations are being announced by researchers around the world on a regular basis with market demand for graphene is growing rapidly.
“In 2017, there were a total of 12,371 patent filings about graphene worldwide, an upsurge of 30.7 per cent over the previous year.”
The global graphene market size stood at roughly US$85 million in 2017, grew to US$200 million in 2018 and is now forecast to reach $1 billion by 2023, according to a report published by Research and Markets in November.
Zen Graphene has identified five “significant potential market verticals for its product: aerospace, biomedical, water treatment, transportation and civil engineering.
“We are creating win-win-win scenarios for everyone involved as we help solve industry challenges in delivering the power of graphene to end users,” said Dubé. “The work being done across the country has the potential to make Canada a leader in the emerging clean technology-oriented graphene industry.”
The company is also working with the University of British Columbia to study the feasibility of using tailings material generated from processing the Albany graphite ore for application as a partial cement replacement material.
Over the life of the mine, the deposit is expected to result in some 20 million tonnes of tailings, so finding an application for the material would both generate additional revenue and reduce the environmental footprint of the operation.
Dissident shareholders replaced four members of the board, including president Aubrey Eveleigh, in May 2018 due to the disappointing performance of the company as share prices fell from a high of $1.64 in May 2015 to 42 cents April 20, 2018. In August, Don Bubar, president and CEO of Avalon Advanced Materials, was appointed co-CEO of the company.
The company closed a $3 million flow-through financing deal priced at 40 cents in December and as of January 29, shares were trading at 55 cents.
