Versarien to Develop Graphene Heaters with Tunghsu Optoelectronic

Versarien (LSE:VRS) announced on Thursday (March 14) that it has signed a letter of intent (LOI) with Tunghsu Optoelectronic to develop and manufacture graphene heaters in China.

The company engaged in advanced engineering materials said that the new generation graphene heaters would be based on Cambridge Graphene’s micro-flow graphene ink technology.

Cambridge Graphene, a subsidiary of Versarien is involved in the supply of inks based on graphene and related materials. The firm uses scalable production processes for its graphene ink, which is developed at the Cambridge Graphene Centre at the University of Cambridge.

The LOI between Versarien and Tunghsu Optoelectronic, a company engaged in the supply of optoelectronic display materials, seeks to build on the relationship by jointly developing other products like graphene enhanced sports equipment and smart wearable devices.

The two companies had initially entered into a memorandum of understanding in November 2018 which focused on graphene industrialization.

In Thursday’s release, the companies said they will establish a joint implementation committee to progress the plans of the LOI, which consists of three members from each party. The committee would also look at the option of entering into a manufacturing joint venture which, however, wasn’t said to be guaranteed.

Neill Ricketts, CEO of Versarien, said in the release that the company is pleased with the advancement of its relationship with Tunghsu Optoelectronic.

“We have been working closely with Tunghsu Optoelectronic since November last year and we look forward to progressing our research and development activities with them with a view to ultimately establishing a joint manufacturing capability in China.

“We are also making good progress with our other collaborations in China and elsewhere. I look forward to providing further updates in due course,” Ricketts said.

It has to be noted that graphene ink was advanced by a team of researchers from Northwestern Engineering in 2013. It is tipped to offer all properties of graphene, like higher electrical conductivity, mechanical flexibility and chemical stability.

The university noted that inkjet printing had been explored prior to its advancement as a method of fabricating transistors, solar cells and other electronic components.

Additionally, the researchers said that graphene ink’s properties were said to be unchanged, even when it is bent to a degree, which leads to its potential applications in foldable electronic devices.

“By formulating an inkjet-printable ink based on graphene, we now have an inexpensive and scalable path for exploiting these properties in real-world technologies,” Mark Hersam, professor at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, said in a release in 2013.

Further, in May 2017, a team of researchers said in a paper that a graphene-based heater exhibited a steady temperature of up to 220 degree celsius within five seconds. The team said that the high steady-state temperature and ultrafast response time is superior when compared to most existing heaters.

Following the announcement, shares of Versarien closed the trading session at GBP 0.95 with the stock remaining unchanged from Wednesday’s price. The stock has a “Sell” ranking on TradingView with 10 verticals against, 10 in neutral and eight in favor.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Bala Yogesh, hold no direct investment interest in anycompany mentioned in this article.