Agreement between Haydale and Huntsman

This agreement has resulted from the preliminary but highly successful work, jointly undertaken with Huntsman, to develop a range of graphene enhanced resins to complement its current product range.

The agreement provides Huntsman with the exclusive worldwide rights to market, distribute and sell a range of its resins enhanced with Haydale functionalised graphene. This will include ARALDITE® epoxy resins. The agreement will allow Huntsman to purchase Haydale’s graphene enhanced masterbatches for use in the fields of composites and adhesives. Huntsman has also agreed to work exclusively with HCS to further develop graphene enhanced masterbatches with specific targeted performance characteristics

Over the past 12 months, HCS and Huntsman have been jointly working on the development of graphene enhanced masterbatches and resin formulations with significant performance enhancements in terms of improved fracture toughness and thermal conductivity. After further development work to optimise both product performance and manufacturing processes, Huntsman’s resins enhanced with Haydale’s graphene technology will be evaluated by targeted customers looking to benefit from the fracture toughness or thermal conductivity property improvements. Assuming successful customer trials, there will be visibility of significant revenue potential as Huntsman’s customers realise the value of these graphene enhanced materials.

Ray Gibbs, Haydale CEO stated:

“We took the decision last year to invest internal funds in the development of targeted specific performance uplifts in epoxy resins for Huntsman. Not only have we produced exciting results with Huntsman’s resins but the mixing, formulation and processing know how we have gained is very significant in ensuring consistent quality, differentiating us from competitors and will enable us to accelerate the development of new applications and hence commercial revenues. These are exciting times for the Group as we start to commercialise all the development work carried out over the past year or so.”

Commenting on the agreement, Gerry Boyce Managing Director of HCS said:

“We have made great progress over the past 12 months in the development of graphene enhanced epoxy masterbatches which can be diluted into formulated resins with major increases in fracture toughness, electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity. The ability to radically change the base properties of resins and adhesives is pivotal and will offer designers the ability to be creative and develop cost effective, high performance composite structures across a broad range of industries, including industrial and automotive composites, sports goods and at a later stage, aerospace. We look forward to building on our strong working relationship with Huntsman initially in completing the development program, and moving into the commercialisation of these next generation materials.

Dr. David Hatrick, Huntsman Advanced Materials, Vice President Innovation, commented:

“Graphene enhancement of epoxy resins has been demonstrated in research programs for a number of years, but as yet has not made the jump into higher volume industrial applications in any major way. Our work with Haydale has shown that significant performance improvements can be achieved whilst maintaining processibility of the resins, overcoming a key challenge. We have signed a formal joint development agreement with Haydale and will continue to dedicate resources to complete the optimisation of resin performance for composites and adhesives applications. We look forward to achieving a key milestone in the commercialisation process within the next 6-12 months during which time we will begin sampling materials to our customers in these important industrial markets.”