Zenyatta Ventures Ltd. (“Zenyatta” or “Company”) (TSXV: ZEN) is pleased to announce the formation of a wholly owned subsidiary called ZEN-tech Materials Limited (“ZEN-tech”) with a registration in England and Wales. ZEN-tech will focus on the development and commercialization activities of graphene applications and the allocation of any associated intellectual property (‘IP’) and worldwide licensing. The formation of ZEN-tech is a strategic move that will provide a vehicle to capture value and advance graphene application development separate from the mineral development Company. Zenyatta will continue to focus on advancing the Albany graphite deposit towards production and will supply highly crystalline, purified graphite to ZEN-tech, academics and end users.
“It has become apparent in the last 12 months that Zenyatta has created additional value from our global collaboration and development related to various graphene initiatives. It makes strategic sense to create a subsidiary to hold the various opportunities and handle these initiatives with our partners”, stated Aubrey Eveleigh, President & CEO of Zenyatta. “ZEN-tech has the advantage of developing proprietary graphene-based technology with a consistent supply of high-quality raw material from Zenyatta’s wholly owned Albany graphite deposit. We have demonstrated that Zenyatta’s graphite converts (exfoliates) easily via sonication to graphene, including mono-layer to tri-layer, has excellent dispersion properties and is highly suitable for many graphene and graphene-oxide applications.”
Graphene has shown to enhance the properties of many existing products since its discovery in 2004. The technology pipeline for ZEN-tech includes graphene applications for concrete composites, rubber composites, sensors, filtration, emulsions and silicon-graphene batteries. The formation of a subsidiary will help facilitate and focus the integration of Zenyatta graphene into the next generation of commercial technologies, providing various industries with advanced materials that have improved performance.
ZEN-tech, a private incorporated company, will have access to the high-purity graphite from Zenyatta Ventures for graphene and graphene related opportunities. There is a high level of interest, especially in Europe, from sophisticated technology or cleantech entities, particularly related to a need for access to a unique raw material graphite source that converts to high-quality graphene for various applications. The UK is a centre for graphene research, innovation and funding and consequently this attracts many global graphene industry specialists. By locating in UK, ZEN-tech will be able to tap into the extensive resources available there and will be on the leading edge of the developments in this new and fast growing materials sector. The subsidiary will operate independently of Zenyatta and will be assembling an expert management team once the structure is in place. Details on company structure and related developments will be announced in the near future.
