PR1 appoints lead researcher for carbon nanotube fibre cooling tech
Our advanced materials Investment Pure Resources (ASX: PR1) just appointed Dr Jong Ha Park as its lead researcher for its TEMPERON tech.
Dr Park holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley, with published cooling systems research in Nature Communications and Science Advances.
So he has the right skillset to develop PR1’s tech (using carbon nanotube fibres as thermal management material).
Think heat sinks and cooling hardware that is designed to go inside AI data centres, drones, robots and defence systems.
The program is now running under PR1's own brand, TEMPERON, which has been trademarked, so everything that comes from the program will be branded as this.
Dr Park slots in alongside the Rice University team that is leading the program (on behalf of PR1).
See our latest note on the tech here: PR1: Tech now approved for use by USA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) participants
PR1 now has peer-reviewed articles published on its tech
PR1 also references the peer reviewed results on its tech published by the Rice University team.
The article showed that a single CNTF thread was able to sustain more than 1,000 thermal cycles in air with no measurable change in resistance.
For context - a comparable sample (the alloy used in most heating elements) failed after just five cycles.
CNTF were also able to handle temperatures of roughly 2,300 degrees Celsius in non oxidising gases, versus ~1,400 degrees for the other samples.
(The study was run and funded independently of PR1 - but it tests the same properties PR1's heat sink program depends on)
(source)
Here is a link to the full article.
Before today’s news we already knew CNTFs are ~1.5x MORE CONDUCTIVE than copper AND ~2.5x to 3x more than aluminium at lab scale. (source)
AND ~5.5x lighter than copper and 3x lighter than aluminium.
Now we have independent verification PR1’s material performs stronger than existing materials…
What steps are PR1 and Rice University taking to validate the tech?
PR1 has three separate workstreams running concurrently (and somewhat related to one another).
- The CNTF thermal management with Rice University (the main reason we Invested)
- Heavy rare earth + yttrium recovery with the US DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- Premium abrasive garnet being qualified for US naval shipbuilders
The one we are most interested in is the CNTF workstream.
PR1 committed to four data releases to prove the tech, and three are now done:
- ✅ Conductivity (~1.5x copper)
- ✅ Weight (~5.5x lighter than copper)
- ✅ Thermal anisotropy (peer reviewed - directional heat routing)
- 🔄 System-level heat performance - "the big one", real-system tests against copper and aluminium, underway now
That final head-to-head is the release we think could attract real industry attention.
PR1's CNTF IP is jointly owned with Rice only where they are co-inventors, so any licensing or commercial outcome still has to be negotiated.
Here is a look at how the technology looks in action and how it can be created:
(source - PR1 announcement)
A little while ago PR1 posted this video with the Rice team, so you can not only see some of the team in action, but can get an idea of how CNTF’s are made:
What we want to see next from PR1
🔄 US government funding outcomes
PR1 has commenced applications to DoE and DoD funding programs. We want to see at least one of these land - it would validate the program and provide additional capital:
(source)
🔄 End user collaboration progress
Multiple organisations are already engaging. We want to see this progress toward joint development agreements or testing partnerships with named parties.
🔄 Workstream milestones
With 8 workstreams now defined, we want to see PR1 start ticking off deliverables - starting with feedstock qualification and fibre synthesis.
PR1’s recent announcement confirmed that feedstock has been collected for characterisation, the very first step of Step 1.
Just prior to that PR1 confirmed the 8 step program to get this underway:
(source)
