Mr. Moe Jiwan reports

ZENTEK FILES PROVISIONAL PATENT APPLICATION FOR ABSORPTION-BASED EMI SHIELDING COATING MADE FROM ALBANY GRAPHITE

Zentek Ltd. has filed a provisional patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office covering ZEN-EMI-01, a water-based electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding coating produced from purified graphite from the company's Albany deposit. The filing establishes a priority date and is the first step in protecting the company's EMI shielding coating platform.

The interference problem

Electronic systems both emit electromagnetic (EM) energy and can be disrupted by it. Most people have encountered a version of this. A phone set down beside a speaker produces a buzz, or a radio loses its signal near power lines. In each case, energy from one device is interfering with another. Where electronics are densely packed, the same effect degrades sensor readings, corrupts data and can take systems offline. EMI shielding is what prevents it.

Conventional shielding solves this by reflection, using metal or metal-filled materials to bounce energy away. Reflection works, but the energy has to go somewhere and in dense installations it can end up disrupting other nearby electronics.

How the coating works

ZEN-EMI-01 absorbs incoming electromagnetic energy inside the coating as a small amount of heat rather than reflecting that energy back into the surrounding environment. It does this with a combination of three ingredients: purified graphite from the Albany deposit for electrical conductivity, magnetic ferrite particles to add a magnetic absorbing effect and a conductive polymer to bind these materials' characteristics together. The finished coating is water-based, meaning that the product should be applicable to a range of surfaces using the same equipment as conventional industrial coatings.

Laboratory results

In internal laboratory testing, a layer of ZEN-EMI-01 approximately the thickness of two sheets of paper significantly reduced a band of microwave EM frequencies commonly used in radar and satellite communication. Absorption accounted for the majority of the shielding, making the coating potentially suitable for densely designed or especially sensitive electronic systems. Further development will aim to preserve this absorption-based shielding mechanism while maintaining a thin and flexible product.

These are preliminary internal results measured at the company's Guelph facility and have not been independently verified. Third party, thickness-normalized shielding effectiveness measurement under a recognized standard method, together with benchmarking against commercial products under common test conditions, forms part of the development program described below.

Why this matters

Shielding requirements are most acute where electronics are dense, weight is constrained and interference is difficult to manage. Those conditions appear across telecommunications infrastructure, automotive radar, industrial systems, aerospace and defence electronics.

The frequencies in which ZEN-EMI-01 was tested are widely used in radar and satellite communications. NATO has described the electromagnetic environment as increasingly congested, contested and constrained and treats it as an operational environment in its own right. ZEN-EMI-01 has not been tested or qualified for any of these applications and the company has no agreements with customers in any of them.

A shielding technology built on Albany graphite

The conductive framework of ZEN-EMI-01 is produced from Albany graphite. Albany's geological setting is uncommon among graphite deposits and contributes to the graphite's fine crystal structure, which is well suited to the thermomechanical exfoliation process developed for this technology.

Advanced shielding materials are generally built on purchased or synthesized inputs. ZEN-EMI-01 is built on a natural graphite resource the company owns. That integration extends from deposit to purified graphite, to processed advanced material, to a patent-pending product application. As governments in Canada, the United States and allied nations prioritize secure supply chains for critical minerals, the company believes that advanced materials produced from a Canadian graphite deposit may be of interest to defence and government customers.

Development pathway and next steps

The provisional filing begins a 12-month period during which the company may file international (PCT) and national applications claiming priority to it. Over that period, the ZEN-EMI-01 development program comprises:

• Verified shielding effectiveness measured by a third party under a standard method, including characterization and absorption fraction data across the frequency ranges relevant to target applications, together with benchmarking against commercial EMI shielding and absorber products;

• Formulation optimization across ferrite loading, conductive polymer content, layer architecture and coating thickness;

• Application, durability and substrate testing using conventional spray equipment, including adhesion, thermal cycling and environmental exposure performance, with prospective partners in defence electronics, aerospace and communications;

• Scale-up of the exfoliation and formulation processes using conventional coating manufacturing methods.

ZEN-EMI-01 is at laboratory stage.

Commentary

"Shielding a modern electronic platform is a weight and geometry problem and the conventional answer is still metal," said Moe Jiwan, chief executive officer of Zentek. "ZEN-EMI-01 is a paint. It can be applied to shapes and surfaces that are difficult to shield with metal and it absorbs electromagnetic energy rather than reflecting it toward neighbouring systems. It is made from purified graphite from our Albany deposit in Canada, which is another potential strategic application for our deposit. This filing secures the priority date. The work from here is optimization, independent benchmarking and putting the coating in front of qualified end-users. We will report each of those steps as they are completed."

About Zentek Ltd.

Zentek is a Canadian intellectual property development and commercialization company advancing a portfolio of graphene-enabled and advanced material technologies across clean air, next-generation materials and critical minerals. Core platforms are Albany graphite, ZenGuard and Triera. Albany is the company's principal critical minerals asset.

We seek Safe Harbor.