Scoping study due towards the end of the month and that should...

Scoping study due towards the end of the month and that should tell us more about the technicals, costs and timeframes about the graphite/graphene production process.

Based on the MD's recent announcement about Jalkunen, the second of the deposits to be drilled, Talga is sitting on what appears to be a massive Cg province of geologically identical material that has the potential to dwarf that of its competitors.

If he is also correct in saying that in both deposits the graphite and graphene can be easily separated using the same one-step low cost refining process Talga will clearly be industry leader in flake graphene production.

Very encouraged too by the push to engage with potential new customers including in the steel industry where graphene can be used as a coating to strengthen steel, presumably allowing greater loads to be carried using the same steelwork or alternatively reducing the amount of steel needed by upping the graphene content. And then there are a host of other potential applications, auto industry, aerospace, defence and so on.

All of which is very interesting and encouraging nonetheless from a technical viewpoint fabricating a large sheet from small flakes of graphene has proven elusive. Early work focussed on growing it on a substrate but now MIT has undertaken research using chemical vapour deposition using nickel and glass.

No doubt collaboration with the UK university and CSIRO is looking at how to make large graphene sheets as well as ways to attach and integrate the graphene on its host. Once that is done we should see a substantial revaluation.

Clearly, if the company can secure the technology for making large sheets and fixing it in end use applications we are sitting on a monster company.