Mr. Marc Roy reports

FOCUS GRAPHITE RECEIVES INTERNATIONAL PRELIMINARY REPORT ON PATENTABILITY FOR ITS PATENT APPLICATION FOR ADVANCED ANODE MATERIAL COMPRISING SPHEROIDAL SILICON ENHANCED GRAPHITE PARTICLES

Focus Graphite Inc. has received a final copy of the international preliminary report on patentability (IPRP) for its patent application for advanced anode material comprising spheroidal silicon-enhanced graphite particles, which includes a determination that all claims (1-26) are novel and inventive. The patent application was submitted in March 2021 (see press release of March 1, 2021 for more details).

The IPRP Examiner's findings are of direct significance and benefit to Focus Graphite as the Company will now move forward with classifying and protecting the inventive claims into specific National Phase (NP) jurisdictional patent applications. In doing so, the company will accomplish two key strategic goals by the time the NP patent applications are fully granted through each NP review process:

1. Documenting a novel, inventive, and industrially applicable advanced material manufacturing process for the creation of high-performance lithium-ion battery anodes, wherein the flake graphite raw materials required for this process could be sourced internally from the company's Lac Knife or Lac Tetepisca projects as well as from external sources and/or partnerships.

2. By filing the application into key, strategic jurisdictions where lithium-ion battery manufacturers currently operate or will do so in future, Focus Graphite will have a strong position from which to commercialize and expand its business toward anode technology licensing, battery co-development, and material offtake opportunities.

Each NP review process now has the potential to be fast-tracked, given this favourable review from the IPRP Examiner.

"This is an exciting development for Focus Graphite and is a validation of our commitment to innovation and continuous improvement," said Marc Roy, President and CEO of Focus Graphite. "While we continue to work to advance our Lac Knife and Lac Tetepisca large-flake graphite projects, this milestone represents additional value for our shareholders, as we will be able to offer producers of silicon-enhanced spherical graphite for use in lithium-ion batteries the opportunity to either reduce the cost of their anodes by adding less silicon in their spherical graphite formulation while maintaining current lithium ion battery performance, or keeping the silicon additions at current levels and improving overall battery performance. Either way, more robust, higher-performance lithium-ion batteries will be the result of this new technology, to be used in electric vehicles (EVs) or other applications related to renewable energy and reducing dependence on fossil fuels."

Battery Anode Backgrounder

For anode material to be considered battery-worthy, the anode must be of high enough quality so that practical active material loadings on the anode are on the order of 10 to 12 mg/cm2 (or higher). In an embodiment of Focus Graphite's invention, the anodes comprised of silicon-enhanced spheroidal graphite have active material loadings far surpassing these levels, reaching up to 16.2 mg/cm2.

The formation of spheroidal particles is beneficial as it provides maximum packing density in the assembly of the lithium-ion battery anode materials, which will maximize both the Specific Energy (Wh/kg) and Energy Density (Wh/L) of a full battery cell level, thus increasing battery life and power.

Qualified Person

Dr. Joseph Doninger, Focus Graphite's Director of Technology and Manufacturing is the Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects - has reviewed and approved the technical content of this news release. Dr. Doninger is an internationally recognized graphite processing expert and himself, the inventor of a number of patents and an author of over 27 technical papers and presentations related to graphite processing and the use of graphite in energy storage systems. Dr. Doninger is a co-editor on the NATO Science Series book titled "New Carbon Based Materials for Electrochemical Energy Storage Systems". Dr. Doninger is also an Honorary Professor at the Department of Chemistry from the Kiev National University of Technologies and Design.

About Focus Graphite

Focus Graphite Inc. is an advanced exploration company with an objective of producing flake graphite concentrate at its wholly owned Lac Knife and Lac Tetepisca flake graphite projects located in the Cote-Nord administrative region of Quebec. In a second stage, to meet Quebec stakeholder interests in developing second transformation industries within the province and to add shareholder value, Focus is evaluating the feasibility of producing value-added specialty graphite products including battery-grade spherical graphite.

Focus Graphite is a technology-oriented graphite development company with a vision for building long-term, sustainable shareholder value. Focus also holds a significant equity position in graphene applications developer Grafoid Inc.

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