My take on Eden

Firstly I hold TAS. I am writing this from my point of view as a PhD trained synthetic organic chemist. I am not an engineer and I am not a finance person.

For starters I don't believe the product contains carbon nanotubes - at all. From a chemistry perspective they would be unlikely to be amenable to an aqueous concrete environment. In such an environment I would expect carbon nanotubes to clump due to pi stacking (Van der Vaals forces). Aromatic rings such as those in carbon nanotubes tend to stack on top of each other. Nanotubes have a relatively low surface area and along with clumping (in concrete) would not be able to form effective hydrogen bonds. If you like mixing carbon nanotubes with an aqueous environment is similar to mixing cooking oil and water ie they will not mix. It really is simply the old adage of like mixes with like.

Carbon nanotubes can be converted to graphene oxide. The monash patents specifies the use of graphene oxide in concrete. Graphene oxide would be far more amenable to the aqueous environment. The functionalized carboxy, alcohol and epoxy groups are polar and will interact far better in a polar aqueous (concrete) environment. The graphene oxide solves the mixing and dispersion issues which carbon nanotubes have in an aqueous environment. The opened graphene oxide 'ribbons' have a much greater surface area than nanotube and because of functionalization also have the ability to form hydrogen bonds.

Eden have used formulations of 4 gallons per cubic yard. I expect the majority of the formulation to be simply water. You can not dissolve carbon nanotubes in water but at the correct pH I am sure that graphene oxide will be homogeneous (dissolved).

Presuming approximately 10% by weight of the formulation is graphene oxide then my calculations have somewhere in the order of 2kg of graphene oxide being added to a cubic metre of concrete. (this is at the 4 gallons per cubic yard dosage). This equates to 5.26 gallons of Edencrete per cubic metre. Sale price of $25 US per gallon (or $18 for early adopters). Total of $131 per cubic metre.

I see that 2 kg of graphene oxide can be purchased off the internet for approx. $10 US per kilogram. I think it must be very cheap to make carbon nanotubes and consequently graphene oxide once you know how to do it! This suggests a pretty good profit margin. I think.