Products Surface Treatments & Application

Press Releases

AGM secures exclusive distribution agreement with Indian partner, Imkemex

International collaboration expands the reach of AGM’s graphene products across the Asian chemical market
Applied Graphene Materials (LSE: AGM), the producer of specialty graphene nanoplatelet dispersions, is excited to announce that it has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Imkemex (Headquarters, Mumbai, India). The partnership extends AGM’s commercial reach directly into the region’s liquid resins, coatings, composites and polymers sectors.
Originally formed by ICI India in 1965, Imkemex is now a growing, independent provider of distribution services for overseas chemical companies. The new agreement will see the two organisations collaborate on local opportunities for the application of AGM’s proprietary Genable graphene dispersion technology and facilitate wider engagement with new and existing customers within the Indian market.
In addition to its own commercial activity in the U.K. and the United States, AGM has distribution agreements with local expert chemicals and coatings distributors in a growing number of export markets. As a result, AGM has achieved strong regional coverage for its products, providing detailed customer understanding and technical guidance for graphene’s potential use.
Adrian Potts, AGM CEO commented:
“It is a great pleasure to be able to welcome Imkemex into AGM’s growing sales network as a technically-capable, commercially-astute distribution partner for our Genable brand in India. AGM is committed to enabling the widespread application of graphene dispersions and offering competitive advantages to its partners through the development of innovative graphene-enhanced products. At this stage of AGM’s commercialisation, the appointment of Imkemex as our regional distributor in a key strategic market is a significant step towards achieving further adoption of our dispersed graphene nanoplatelets globally.”
Saumendra Tripathy, Managing Director, Imkemex Marketing, commented:
“We at Imkemex are delighted to be AGM’s partner of choice for India. Imkemex’s proven expertise is to provide innovative and novel solutions fit for the Indian chemical industry and it augurs well with AGM’s innovations with Graphene based materials in solving real-life issues and helping create a more sustainable world. Together, we provide state-of-the-art and sustainable solutions of chemical resistance and corrosion inhibition to the Indian coatings industry.”

AGM signs distribution agreement with Rayoung Chemtech Inc., Taiwan

Applied Graphene Materials (LSE:AGM), the producer of specialty graphene nanoplatelet dispersions, is pleased to announce that it has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Rayoung Chemtech Inc. (Headquarters, Taipei, Taiwan). The partnership will extend AGM’s commercial reach directly into the region’s liquid resins, coatings, composites and polymers sectors.

Founded in 2008, Rayoung Chemtech Inc. has always been committed to delivering high performance specialty chemicals and shares AGM’s vision for helping customers improve material performance and strengthen product competitiveness. The distribution agreement will see the two companies collaborate on customer opportunities and introduce AGM’s proprietary Genable graphene dispersion technology into the Taiwanese coatings and composites market.

In addition to its own commercial hubs in the U.K. and the United States, AGM now has distribution agreements with local expert chemicals and coatings distributors in a growing number of export markets. As a result, AGM has achieved excellent regional coverage providing detailed customer understanding and appreciation of graphene’s potential.

Adrian Potts, AGM CEO commented:
“I am really pleased to welcome Rayoung Chemtech Inc. to the commercial team, in line with our strategy to continue expanding our distributor footprint. We believe that the key to graphene’s continued commercialisation is to combine innovative materials technology with a local customer approach that presents the practical advantages of use and the true potential of graphene dispersions in their applications. We look forward to working with the highly motivated team at Rayoung Chemtech Inc. to take advantage of the many opportunities in the Taiwanese market.”

Ray Chung from Rayoung Chemtech Inc. commented:
“AGM is a world-leading graphene material innovator and dispersions manufacturer and through their advanced technology, we see the vision, potential and great possibilities for supporting the development of a wide spread of industries. We are very happy to become AGM’s partner and jointly introduce new materials that can be practically applied to the Taiwan market. I believe that we can bring higher value to the industry chain and create a better future together, just as Rayoung Chemtech believes in “Better Chemistry, Better Life!”

AGM to Showcase Latest Technology at Key Industry Events

Applied Graphene Materials (LSE:AGM), the producer of specialty graphene nanoplatelet dispersions, is pleased to announce that it will be taking part in two events over the coming months across its key market sectors. AGM plans to showcase the Company’s latest technological developments in graphene dispersion capabilities at two events: JEC Composites Connect and CoatingsTech Conference.

The AGM team will be showcasing its graphene nanoplatelet dispersions for polymer and composite applications at JEC Composites Connect, an event which will bring together key industry players across the composites community to discuss global trends and new technologies being brought to market. With the correct incorporation through advanced materials engineering, AGM’s graphene nanoplatelets can offer composite materials improved mechanical properties, such as fracture toughness and durability, as well as enabling weight reduction across a variety of applications. Innovative collaboration projects have ranged from next-generation cryogenic pressure tanks, to automotive body panels and ocean fishing rods.

The event is taking place in digital format on June 1-2, and more information is available at https://www.appliedgraphenematerials.com/agm-joins-new-virtual-event-for-the-composites-industry/

Focused on the application of AGM’s graphene dispersions, the Company will also be presenting on Tuesday 29th June at CoatingsTech conference, which is hosted by the American Coatings Association (ACA). AGM will deliver a technical presentation on the formulation of graphene dispersions for water-based coatings and their anti-corrosion benefits. The conference will be centred on the theme of “Essential Coatings Technology: Supporting Tomorrow’s Sustainable Development Challenges Today” and will feature the latest science and technology developments from industry experts, coatings professionals and leading innovators, as they address current and future market challenges.

The two-day in-person conference will take place in Pittsburgh USA. Registration for the event and more information about the ACA’s work is available at: https://www.paint.org/aca-events/coatings-tech-conference/

Applied Graphene Materials Announce Approval Grant

Applied Graphene Materials (LSE:AGM), is delighted to announce that approval has been granted by ECHA, the European Chemical Agency, for a volume threshold of 1 to 10 tonnes of powder usage per annum of graphene products supplied by individual members of the Graphene REACH registration consortium, of which AGM is a founding member.

Following rigorous evaluation of the range of graphene materials which each consortium member offers, and completion of the final submission documents to ECHA towards the end of 2020, the successful outcome represents a major milestone for the graphene industry and enables consortium members such as AGM to supply quantities of graphene materials in volume. The tonnage band registration of 1 to 10 tonnes p.a. provides confidence in the potential for volume quantity use of graphene materials in the range of applications which consortium members including AGM are pursuing.

Adrian Potts, CEO of AGM, commented:
“I am delighted to announce the successful REACH registration for this volume tonnage band, which represents the culmination of almost four years of work. Strategically, we identified the critical importance of regulatory registration to the long-term success of our business and have committed significant resources to achieving this result today. This registration underpins the effective and safe use of AGM’s graphene materials at higher volumes. AGM continues to demonstrate the excellent utility of our graphene products with our customer engagements, and this registration will ensure we can meet our ambitions for larger volume orders as our commercial pipeline continues to develop. I would like to recognise the tireless efforts of our Technical team as members of the graphene consortium who have pursued the substantial workload that is represented in this registration announcement.”

BCF calls for further changes to UK REACH after small step in the right direction

The British Coatings Federation has welcomed recent proposed changes to the forthcoming UK REACH regime as a small but welcome step in the right direction. However, it has also warned that these changes alone will not be enough to prevent the coatings sector – and wider chemicals industry – from being hit hard financially under the new post-Brexit regime. This is because it does still not resolve the underlying, inherent problems with the proposed UK REACH system namely duplication of the EU REACH system and re-registration of all substances in a new database. It is this wholesale re-registration – including full data dossiers duplicating registrations already held in the EU REACH system – which will prove so bureaucratic, burdensome, and costly to business.

The easiest and seemingly best way to avoid this wholesale duplication would be for the UK and EU to negotiate a data-sharing agreement as part of the ongoing Free Trade Agreement talks. This would potentially mean the UK regulator would maintain access to data already registered in the EU REACH database and avoid it having to be re-registered in the new UK REACH system. The BCF fully supports the UK Government’s attempts to achieve this result as part of the FTA talks.

However, if that data-sharing outcome is not achieved as part of an FTA, the Government needs to go further and initiate greater changes to the proposed UK REACH system. The time extension for substance registrations simply spreads the cost of the registration requirements over a longer period: it does not reduce the overall cost to business. Those additional costs will still make it uneconomic for some lower quantity substances to be registered in the UK REACH database, making them unavailable in the UK and leaving UK companies at a significant disadvantage to their EU counterparts. Alternatively, UK businesses will have to take on the registration costs themselves to maintain access to crucial substances, again putting them at a competitive disadvantage.

Tom Bowtell, CEO of the British Coatings Federation said:

“Along with others we have been actively and positively engaged in conversations with the UK Government for well over a year. It is good to see that the Government has listened to the genuine concerns industry has raised and amended their plans for UK REACH. However, while we welcome the changes as a step in the right direction, sadly we do not believe the scale of the amendments are enough to offset the large costs and inconveniences UK business will suffer at the hands of UK REACH system as it stands.

“We hope that a data-sharing agreement on chemicals can be negotiated between the UK and EU as part of an FTA, and fully support the Government as it continues to work for that outcome: it would seem to be the most practical solution to this problem. However, if such an agreement does not come to pass then we hope the Government will continue to engage with, and listen to, the continued concerns of industry. Ultimately, we hope they realise we are not crying wolf over the impact of UK REACH on companies using chemicals like the paint, coatings and printing ink industries, and agree to make further amendments to their plans that will mitigate the effect of the new UK regulatory system on business.”

Car care customer launches two innovative graphene-based sealants

Applied Graphene Materials (LSE:AGM), the producer of specialty graphene nanoplatelet dispersions, announces that its customer, Constellation Chemicals, has launched two new sealants in its car detailing product range enhanced with AGM’s graphene nanoplatelet technology.

The two products, Parallax, a graphene-enhanced ceramic sealant and Gravity, a graphene-enhanced snow sealant, launch following a programme of research and testing by Constellation Chemicals. The growing UK-based manufacturer of car care products claims that they offer performance enhancements such as hydrophobicity, chemical resistance to acid rain, road salt and bird lye and produce excellent durability, gloss, water repellence and beading.

The new product launches demonstrate further progress in the incorporation of AGM’s industry leading Genable® graphene nanoplatelet dispersions for the car care market. Working in partnership with forward-looking players in the industry such as Constellation Chemicals, ensures AGM can continue to drive graphene innovation in car detailing applications with its customers.

The new sealants have gained significant interest from customers and are available to order at: https://constellationchemicals.com/

Adrian Potts, Chief Executive Officer of AGM, commented:

“We are pleased to have been able to work with the team at Constellation Chemicals to bring these two new highperformance products to market. It is a further demonstration of the ease of use of AGM’s carefully formulated graphene dispersions in our customers’ product formulations. We look forward to these new products gaining greater customer interest in the innovative protective car care coatings sector, and to further opportunities to collaborate with Constellation Chemicals on future products.”

Gian Franco Totis, Managing Director of Constellation Chemicals, added:
“The release of our two graphene infused products this month has been a major milestone for Constellation Chemicals.
With graphene being the new buzz word on the detailing scene we wanted to get ahead of the competition. Working with AGM’s Genable® range we quickly managed to formulate two products which have exceeded our expectations.
These products offer some great characteristics for the automotive industry including corrosion and chemical resistance, gloss enhancement and heat dissipation.
We are excited to have been able to release two brand new graphene-enhanced car care products – our ceramic sealant “Parallax”, and our snow sealant “Gravity”. Following months of research and development this success has only been possible thanks to the insights and support from the team at AGM.”

For further information, please contact:

Applied Graphene Materials +44 (0) 1642 438 214 Andy Gent, Commercial Director Adrian Potts, Chief Executive Officer David Blain, Chief Financial Officer

N+1 Singer +44 (0) 207 496 3000 Peter Steel / Amanda Gray

Allenby Capital Limited (Joint Broker) +44 (0) 203 328 5656 Nick Athanas / Liz Kirchner (Corporate Finance) Matt Butlin / Kelly Gardiner (Sales and Corporate Broking) Hudson Sandler +44 (0) 207 796 4133 Charlie Jack / Emily Dillon

Graphene-enhanced coating successfully developed for Indian power transmission assets

Applied Graphene Materials (LSE:AGM), the producer of specialty graphene nanoplatelet dispersions, is pleased to announce that Stanvac-Superon Group, the India-based manufacturer of industrial repair and maintenance solutions, has introduced a speciality conductive coating incorporating AGM’s Genable dispersed graphene materials, for use on industrial power transmission equipment.

Following successful development and testing, the new protective, conductive coating incorporating AGM’s high-quality A-GNP35 graphene dispersions will reduce contact resistance in coated copper and aluminium electrical cable joints to reduce the power lost over the connection. Using the graphene-based 8079 (A) Power-Plus coating, a 30-50% reduction in contact power loss is achieved, offering significant energy savings over time.

The first customer application is well-underway and is expected to reach approval shortly. Stanvac-Superon Group expects the product to be used for power transmission, electrical distribution, and railways, as well as other high energy consumers such as steel mills, smelters, and refineries.

Adrian Potts, Chief Executive Officer of AGM said:
“Our easy-to-use graphene dispersions have again been successfully incorporated into high performance coatings applications, and enabled our customer to achieve a 30-50% improvement in their product’s performance. This once again reflects the success of AGM’s approach to customer engagement and customer product development. Combining our expertise in formulating and dispersing nanomaterials, we deliver a customised solution to achieve excellent performance gains in customer products.
We look forward to end-user approvals and long-term revenues from the successful deployment of this coating product in India and throughout Stanvac’s export networks.”

Sanjay Mehra, Managing Director of Stanvac-Superon Group said:
“We are indeed impressed with the performance of the AGM graphene dispersions and thank them for all their technical support and assistance in this development”

Infinity Wax Launches Second Graphene-Enhanced Product

Applied Graphene Materials (LSE:AGM) is pleased to announce that its customer, Infinity Wax, a major manufacturer of car care products in Europe, has launched a second car care product enhanced with the Company’s graphene technology. Using AGM’s industry leading Genable® graphene nanoplatelet dispersions, Infinity Wax has launched Graphene Wax, a new generation of high-performance car wax. Infinity Wax launched the new Graphene Wax on 28 January 2021, following the success its ground-breaking QDX Graphene Detailing Spray launched during Q4 2020. The new product offers outstanding water beading and sheeting properties as a result of increased hydrophobicity, resulting in long term paint protection. Graphene Wax makes it easy to wipe away dirt, enabling car owners to achieve a professional wax shine. The new wax product is the result of an extensive evaluation and testing programme between Infinity Wax and AGM. Infinity Wax expects to see significant customer interest in the new product, as was seen in the launch of its QDX Detailing Spray in 2020, where initial stocks sold faster than anticipated and attracted interest from a number of specialist journals and forums for car groups. The Graphene Wax product is available to car owners directly from www.infinitywax.com and at a growing network of car detailing shops across the UK and Europe. Adrian Potts, Chief Executive Officer of AGM, said:

“We are proud to have been able to work with the Infinity Wax team on the development of a further performanceenhancing product for the car care sector which incorporates our graphene dispersion technology. We are delighted to see a second graphene product launch for our customer and we look forward to seeing this product’s success in the market, and how this translates into revenue growth for both AGM and Infinity Wax. This product once again demonstrates the effectiveness of AGM’s approach to close collaboration with our customers, which has delivered an optimum outcome with the deployment of our graphene dispersions.” Mike Cipriani, Founder of Infinity Wax, commented:

“The launch of our second graphene fortified car care product in less than 12 months has been a significant milestone for Infinity Wax. AGM has been instrumental to our R&D process through technical support and a reliable supply of raw material.

The use of Genable® dispersions in our latest product, an automotive paste wax, has allowed us to push the performance of our synthetic wax technology beyond what has previously been possible while also allowing the product to be beginner friendly with effortless ease of use, something rarely seen in these types of highly durable waxes. The success of our first product, QDX Graphene, a water-based quick detail spray, has set a precedent and given a great deal of confidence to our customers using these products, but also for our new and existing distribution partners, who have also benefited from the product’s success. This is echoed by the launch of our new wax product, where 77% of the manufactured stock sold within 24 hours.”

Siltech – Silicone Amines for Coatings

Silicone amine polymers are an interesting category of materials within silicone chemistry.
They tend to provide the very best handle and softness to textile substrates.
They are also quite hydrophobic, so are used in applications such as car care.
They can additionally be used as reactive components in resins.

Broadly speaking, there are 5 categories at Siltech, as follows:

1 – Aminoethyl aminopropyl-based, with structure as shown:

“a” and “b” can be varied. Silamine 2972 and Silamine MUE are good examples within this product group.

2 – Reactive amino-functional prepolymers, with structures as shown below:

There are a multitude of types, and these can be co-reacted into coatings and resins in order to provide flexibility and add impact resistance.

3 – Silicone polyether amines, as shown here:

In this case, the aminoethyl aminopropyl groups are “solubilised” with polyether groups. For example, Silamine D208 EDA is water-soluble. These types are also reactive (carbinol functional), and a, b, c, d and e can be varied.

4 – Silicone alkyl amines have alkyl groups in addition to the amine functionality, in order to improve organo-compatibility. Silamine T-97 is one example, and Siltech has made a series of these products.

5 – Fluorosilicone amines are niche, but Silmer NHF Di-H1 is one example, which has pendant fluoro groups and terminal allyl amines.

Please contact dave.wilson@siltech.com

Siltech – Silicone Film Formers for Coating Applications

Siltech Film Formers are designed to coalesce and react on hard surfaces such as concrete, porcelain, wood, countertops, or rubber, and flexible surfaces such as fabric, paper or leather.

The products are all provided in dispersible or dilutable emulsion form.

Typical properties include:

Release
Slip
Anti-squeak
Anti-stain
Softness
Hydrophobing
Gloss
Flexibility

Here’s a table which summarises the various types:

Please contact dave.wilson@siltech.com

Siltech – Using SilmerTM Reactive Silicones to Modify Coatings

Silicon and Carbon are the in same column of the Periodic Table, and so the chemistries of Si and C are very closely related. Siltech builds upon this similarity in the “Silmer”^TM reactive line of products, in order to manufacture numerous functionalised pre-polymers. The resultant silicones can be co-reacted into analogous non-silicone systems in order to improve slip, flexibility, abrasion resistance, release, and hydrophobicity.

In the most general terms, the Silmer^TM reactive pre-polymers are either multi-functional or linear di-functional, and there is an ever-increasing list of functional types, including the following:

Hydroxyl (carbinol) OH
Tetra Hydroxyl (carbinol) OHT functional, for better network formation and improved organo-compatibility.
Acrylate ACR
Tetra Acrylate ACRT
Hydroxy OH ACR Acrylate functional.
Hydride H
Vinyl VIN
Isocyanate NCO
Amine NH
Epoxide functional, both glycidyl-based EP and cycloaliphatic-based EPC.
Trimethoxysilane TMS and Triethoxysilane TES
Thiol SH
Carboxy COOH

Please contact dave.wilson@siltech.com to discuss any of these products.

Successful first application of graphene-enhanced anti-corrosion coatings on Environment Agency assets

Applied Graphene Materials (LSE:AGM), the producer of specialty graphene nanoplatelet dispersions, is pleased to announce that England’s Environment Agency (EA) has successfully completed its first application of AGM’s harsh environment anti-corrosion product to one of its flood defence assets on the North East coast of England. The coastal flood defence gates were coated with AGM’s new graphene enhanced Genable CX-based anti-corrosion primer.

AGM’s coating system that was used in this project is a further iteration of AGM’s product offerings for barrier performance and anti-corrosion application. It represents the culmination of 18 months of in-depth testing and evaluation of anti-corrosion performance for both salt-spray and immersion in harsh test regimes.

This first customer application on a coastal facility represents a major milestone in customer exploitation of AGM’s graphene-enhanced coatings systems for corrosion protection in harsh coastal environments. The coating of the EA’s asset is the first of several planned applications of the system.

Adrian Potts, Chief Executive Officer of AGM said:
“After many years of product development and rigorous testing of example graphene formulations for a range of increasingly harsh corrosion environments, it is extremely gratifying to see the successful application of these coatings in harsh coastal and sea spray conditions. I am excited by the opportunity to engage with England’s Environment Agency and look forward to wider use of our products on further EA assets, as well as deeper engagement with them as an innovative solution provider.
Being based in the North East and seeing our products used locally is also testament to local innovation and the excellent platform of graphene R&D which AGM has developed in the region.”

John Abraham of England’s Environment Agency said:
“The EA has set itself an ambitious target of being a Carbon Net Zero Organisation by 2030. We must innovate and engage with companies that are developing the materials and technologies of tomorrow, if we are to meet this ambition. One area the EA is looking at, is how to lengthen the maintenance intervals on our Flood Risk Management (FRM) Assets, which will reduce our carbon footprint in maintenance activities.

We have welcomed the opportunity, to engage with AGM, who have supplied us with their new advanced graphene primer, that was used in December 2021 on one of our FRM Assets. The asset, comprising of two flood barrier gates, two sluice gates, and various auxiliary components, all within the harsh coastal environment where we have to carry out frequent maintenance, due to its location. We have uniquely used this on half the FRM asset, with the other half in the standard offering we use, giving us a direct comparison which will give real world results in a relatively short period of time, due to its location.
We look forward to working with AGM, for further trials in 2022 of this interesting and innovative product, within a range of real world environments.”

Why it’s time to embrace digital colour masters

A combination of digital standards and industry-leading instruments enables businesses to reduce costs and wastage across the entire supply chain by getting the colour of every component right first time.

Investment in R&D excellence from quality control instrument specialist BYK-Gardner enables companies across the globe to achieve consistent measurement and control of important characteristics such as colour. And not just colour. BYK-Gardner instruments measure many other characteristics such as gloss, orange peel, multi-angled colour, sparkle, graininess, colour fastness, cloudiness, transparency, clarity and haziness.

This is achieved through industry-leading LED illuminated instruments with optimal inter-instrument agreement and enables true full digital masters to be introduced for all these characteristics. The digital masters can easily be distributed through the supply chain making a digital approval process possible at every stage, in every location from beginning to end.

Guarantee repeatable product quality across time and space
Digital masters include spectral data and client requirements, while also allowing automatic colour identification where appropriate. Measurement tolerances and an instant pass/fail can be included on both hand-held and robotic installations. The result is self-approval throughout the supply chain and improved harmony between products to guarantee a high right-first-time rate.

Working with major manufacturers across many industries, the benefits from reductions in waste and delay as well as improvements in communication of measurement data, to productivity, quality and sustainability deliver a complete return on investment – the instruments can pay for themselves!
Digital masters can be sent by e-mail as an xml file to locations anywhere in the world. They have applications within industries including automotive, coatings, plastics, printing inks leather and even wine.

Blagden distributes BYK-Gardner instruments to companies across the United Kingdom. To find out how your business can benefit from the use of these instruments in combination with digital masters, call Simon Moss at Blagden on 01959 560818 or email.

Please note: Information provided here is given in good faith and without liability. It is intended for guidance only. Users are advised to conduct their own independent examination of the product to ascertain its suitability for incorporation into processes or products. Users should ensure that the use of the product complies with all pertinent current legislation. We guarantee to supply to specification, not performance.