And Ecofibre has always been first and foremost about the fibre....

And Ecofibre has always been first and foremost about the fibre. CHG is a proprietary PBR strain that at the time I was around producing beautiful long fibres with a high bast/Hurd ratio (bast fibre is the valuable stuff for textiles, hurd, a low value by product sold or used for hempcrete, horse bedding and mulch) that was producing upwards of 4 tonnes per hectare.

We were using proprietary cotton industry derived “module” transport, storage and mill feeding methods that saved on transport costs and storage space. Most hemp companies use square or round bails. Ecofibre used a “module making machine” to pack the harvested fibre into blocks the size of a shipping container. The whole thing could be lifted on to a truck, moved to the mill and fed directly into the mill from the truck. Again, all Phil Warner stuff. Revolutionary and economical in the industry.

From what I understand, Hemp Black is pyrolized hemp fibre. Pyrolysis is something, usually a carbohydrate (like any plant material) or a hydro carbon (like coal) that is subject to high heat in the absence of oxygen.

That’s how you make ”activated charcoal” for example. I did a little of the preliminary desktop research on pyrolizing hemp years ago, and we put it aside for lack of funding for somebody smarter than me to run with that ball.

I’m a CFO dammit. Not an organic chemist. I understand stuff like this and hempcrete chemistry to a certain point then my brain cells overheat. But looking at all this stuff was a very fun part of my job.

So anyway, I think Hemp Black is just going to be pyrolysed carbon that just happens to be derived from hemp that will be spun into thread much like rayon is made (imagine liquid cellulose spraying out of a shower head which solidifies into flexible thread upon hitting the air). That activated carbon thread will then be woven into cool things.

But it is basically charcoal and could be derived from any number of plentiful cellulose sources.

As I said above, I think it will sell well because it will be derived from hemp, and that has marketing appeal, but from what I understand, it would have no different technical properties from grass clippings that were pyrolysed and spun and woven in the exact same process.

Yeah, it is cool it will come from hemp and we will be the first to do it and maybe we can print circuits on it and make it do cool things. It will be our funding and access to world class materials research partners that will make us first to market with “black” technical textiles.

But I am pretty sure you could make it out of old newspapers, used t-shirts or dirty socks. It wouldn’t have to be hemp.

I am sure the marketing department will convince everyone otherwise.

And I am open to being wrong about this, I started the research on that project in like 2006 (I was thinking more of water filtration), and it sat on the server since then. Good on Barry for buying that too.

Think advanced pharmaceuticals way beyond CBD, high tech textiles incorporating “wearable” computing, thermal and humidity regulating properties. And food. And cosmetics from the hemp oil. And standard industrial fibres. And hempcrete building materials. And licensing out genetics for others to use.

EXL makes CBD and some food. From standard genetics they have to pay for. Just like everyone else.

PBRs are an expense at EXL. At EOF, they are an exclusive competitive advantage at worse, and a revenue stream at best.