Versarien PLC (LON:VRS) Chief Executive Officer Neill Ricketts caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss their new graphene brand ’Nanene’, what it is & what it’ll be used for, their focus on the graphene area and the challenges of being at the forefront of graphene commercialization
Q1: You’ve announced the launch of a new graphene brand, Nanene, this morning, can you tell us more about Nanene and what it is and what it’ll be used for?
A1: So, this is a very significant event for Versarien. This is our baby product, coming out of the University of Manchester campus, and now having secured its order that we announced in November we thought it was approach given the activity that’s going on at the moment to announce a product name for it and to give it a real opportunity to shine in this particular sector. Nanene has been in development for about a year now and things have really started to accelerate towards the last quarter of last year and we obviously announced the very significant order which we worked on through the Christmas holiday. It’s main use at the moment is in carbon fibre composites where it showing independently tested results and superb performance and it’s all about the timing so, we felt the timing was right now.
Q2: So, is Nanene your only focus in the graphene area?
A2: No, not at all, Nanene is the first of our products, it’s the one that has been tested extensively. Having announced again more recently that we’ve taken a majority stake in Cambridge Graphene, we’re also involved in graphene inks and materials for other applications that we haven’t developed yet up in Manchester. It gives us a very unique position that we have a foot in both of these really substantial research areas, we have access to huge amounts of capital equipment that we wouldn’t be able to afford and we’re working with some of the most eminent scientists and developers of this technology in the world, I think. These particular facilities are something to behold, they are truly national treasures and we’re very grateful and very appreciative that we’ve been able to get ourselves in this position but the future is really bright and hopefully you’ll see more of these product launches as the products get developed.
Q3: From what you say, Versarien appear to be at the forefront of the commercialisation of graphene, what are the challenges you’re facing in getting it to be more widely used?
A3: So, about a year ago, we decided to take a slightly different strategy than some of our competitors, there are other forms of graphene that are available out there. We decided that what we would do is we’d put the hard work in and right at the beginning we’d make sure that we’d had all of the data that is required to be able to prove that these materials actually function in application. This is a brand-new field of science, we’re doing things that people have never done before, there’s not a day that goes by when we don’t learn something new or develop our product or our processes. We put that hard work in over the last year and now we’re starting to really reap the benefits of that, we believe that we’ve got a unique proposition, I believe that we’re seeing the real benefit of that test data with the clients that we’re talking about or talking to. So, having got these bases at Cambridge and Manchester now, we can fully exploit the opportunities that are available in this sector. The biggest challenge for us is the number of hours in the day and trying to fit it all in so not only do we have to produce the material but we have to get it out to as many people as we can. The world is a very competitive place, it’s a global market and that’s going to mean a lot of hard slog over the next couple of months, getting to as many meeting and to as many customers as we possibly can.
