Gelion (LSE:GELN) — FY23 Interim Results

0:02 Good morning, and welcome to the GELN PLC Full Year twenty twenty three Interim Results Investor Presentation. Hand corner of the screen. And the company would like to thank all investors for their pre submitted questions, and we'll strive to answer all of these during today's meeting. If you have any further questions, simply click on that Q and A button, type in your question and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company review all questions submitted and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we'd

0:34 like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to John Wood, CEO. Good morning, sir. Thank you very much. Pleased to be able to give you this presentation today. This will be our half year presentation, but it's also fairly close to my hundred day mark as CEO, so be a little bit of a a state of the nation. And then for those of you who would like to stay on, we have a treat for you today. Our founder, Thomas Mushfier, will be doing a special presentation going into extra depth on our lithium sulfur issues as well. So I first would like to introduce our our presentation team today. I'm your CEO, John Wood.

1:22 I have a long history as CEO in high growth innovation companies and particularly in the energy storage industry. It's a real honor to be stewarding GELION for you and a real privilege to be leading the remarkable team that I have. I'd like to pass to our founder, Thomas to give a little background. Yeah. So it's a it's a great opportunity again to, I guess, talk to, you know, our investors, which are really the lifeblood of the company. Your support is extremely important to us, and we're very happy to be able to share some of our exciting news today. I'm very pleased to be sitting here with John who's doing an outstanding job. In his first hundred days, it's really started to to make a very positive and strong impact. And then joining me is Amit Gupta, our CFO, who's been supporting those activities, Sterling Sterling.

2:17 Thank you, Thomas. So my name is Amit Gupta. I'm the CFO almost eighteen, nineteen months with the business. And as previously, we have achieved a lot in the last eighteen, nineteen months, but we'll go through what's been the kind of the key drivers in the last six months to December 31 and then post the period end highlights as well. Thank you, John. Thank you. Thank you.

2:40 Okay. So a little summary first. This has been a very, very important period for GELION. I think that we've we've hit a very important transition point, and I'd like to explain that to you today. GELION, I believe, is maturing from being a company that had some great technology and a great team to a new positioning in the world stage. We'll talk today about the acquisition of the IP that we made that complements our existing technology and our our the work of our existing team. But I believe that GELION is now positioning to become a very important player in the energy storage ecosystem.

3:25 And I believe we're at the point of inflection where that importance and progress will start to be progressively recognized in the broader community. So in the period, we manufactured 1,200 zinc bromide cells for our own testing and for the Asiana project. Since I've commenced, we did a very deep dive on the matched market for zinc bromide, and I'll be talking about some of the outcomes from that work in the course of this presentation. Our team made strong progress with our lithium sulfur activities, and we shared with you a little while ago some of our progress with that in terms of our cycle testing.

4:11 Very recently, we announced to you two IP transactions. Those IP transactions were driven by the progress that our team had been making on their own merit in the lithium sulfur space. So the two transactions, the first one was the acquisition of the IP portfolio, which came from Johnson and Maffy. Now this is a very significant IP portfolio, 85 patent families, 450 patents, very important part of the global IP landscape for lithium sulfur technology. And lithium sulfur, very important new technology. We'll we'll talk about it in detail later, and our founder will present a deep dive. But even if you ask CHAP GPT what will be the next great step in energy storage, he he will let you know that we're on the right track with lithium lithium sulfur.

5:12 GELION was selected by New Energy Nexus, an energy lab supercharge innovation program, which is great recognition, the people behind that energy lab. And particularly, New Energy New Energy Nexus ran the lithium bridge program in the in The US, which led to the large investment in lithium industry acceleration in The US. And the idea with Supercharge program in Australia where your company does its, its primary research was to turbocharge the Australian lithium community. And while we're making all this progress, cash remains strong, and our CFO will, present on cash, as we progress this presentation.

5:59 So looking at our business. When I presented last, we talked about the fact that GELN has two core technologies. One, the zinc bromide technology, which we are positioning at the lead acid ecosystem, and the other, the lithium ion sulfur technology, which we see as the next stage of of lithium industry. Collectively, between the lead acid industry and the lithium ion industry, that is the bulk of the chemical energy storage industry today. They're both today roughly the same size. The lithium industry is a little bigger, but the lithium industry is projected to be three times the size of the lead acid industry by 2030. Starting with our zinc bromide technology, and you can see here picture of some of our cells on the left. And on the right, you can see some of our battery management systems that control the cells.

6:58 We've made very solid progress, and there's a lot of detail in the pictures that you've got on the screen here, but we wanted to share these with you so you can understand the scope of the work that your team is is doing. So firstly, it is a new chemistry. So we are implementing zinc bromide in a flat plate format similar to lead acid. And so we are managing every part of of of the launch of that technology. So that means the chemistry, development of the chemistry for the cells. It means development of the BMS to manage the cells. It means the integration with the system, and we put that all together to create an overall customer experience. You're seeing the elements of our progress on this screen now.

7:48 So first, we started with a single string two kilowatt hour system, Then we moved up to the 12.6 kilowatt hour system, and now we're extending that to the full scale system at the moment. These are pictures you're you're seeing from your team. So battery testing, we are learning about our technology. There is a little bit of difference in the flavor and the approach that I've introduced to GELINE. So we had a a program that was based on launching and launching the zinc bromide technology with its current capabilities and then promoting that into commercialization.

8:40 We also had a series of r and d that we were going to do to add new features to those cells as well to make the the cells the the proposition of the cells while we're going and to lower the cost of manufacture of the cells. So inherent in today's presentation, you will see what you could consider a pivot or a slight changing in approach. So the R and D that we will be doing on the zinc bromide cells was always intended as part of our program. But rather than pushing forward with the cell in its current state, which would have us, if you like, buy some market with some loss leader before we actually got to where we had completed all elements of the compelling proposition of our technology and the cost reduction of our technology.

9:33 We will be pushing forward with the research to to attain that compelling match to market before we we progress to the commercialization. Now that's an important decision and an important slightly important change in in approach. Why are we doing this? Well, we've got a a very strong technology that we're taking into a competitive market segment. We've talked in the past that this technology has a a lot of very good features about it. It's a safe safe technology. It has the capability to do a lot of cycles. It can handle temperature. There's a whole bunch of advantages to our technology, but equally as well, it has characteristics that we have to recognize. Like, for example, if we charge the technology fast, it can develop dendrites. And and so also we have management methods that we use with the technology, like discharging the technology completely to strip those dendrites. So rather than try to launch the technology into market segments that suit the sort of management behavior that we do, we've decided to do the research to to control those artifacts better so that we can make the make the technology come out with confidence conviction in in the segments that it is most compelling. Now one

11:04 of those is that we've recognized that our technology is very good in fast discharge mode, and I'll talk about that in the economics in just a moment. But as this technology is targeted at zinc at the lead acid world, those who understand the lead acid chemistry know that as you discharge faster, you actually get less energy up because the plates passivate, whereas with the GELION technology, we don't have that that effect. So what we've found is new and substantial market opportunities that we wanna work towards. So dendrite management, lower cost electrode materials, and then based on confirmation through our testing program to adjust our initial market focus towards those market segments that we've found most compelling.

11:59 And this diagram now on the left hand side of your screen is very important. So when you look down at the bottom of the screen, when we we talked originally about zinc peroxide, we considered that the technology would be most compelling as a long term duration energy storage method. In fact, from our match to market work, and and I've done a lot of work in the lead acid world before, what we find is that as the rate becomes higher,

12:26 we become progressively more compelling. And that's the orange line on the screen and the white line. So here what we're looking at is upfront cost for the cells in terms of dollars per kilowatt hour impact level. And you can see that as the discharge becomes faster, progressively, we become very compelling in our cost cost comparison. So this is a market segment and market insight that we intend to be moving towards.

13:03 So what can you expect in the next in the outlook for our zinc bromide? First of all, we'll be accelerating the R and D and focusing our attention on the R and D to address those performance enhancements that we've identified from our match to market and to be doing the testing to prepare ourselves so that when we start to lead into the commercialization, we know that we're doing that with a proper match to market and a compelling proposition. This is a mistake that a lot of companies make. We don't wanna make this with GELION. We respect and treasure the support of our our shareholders. We wanna utilize the resources you've entrusted us in the in the very best way, and this is the way that we see that we should be doing that. We'll be doing in house and field field battery managed test programs and when we'll be preparing for external testing and certification.

14:01 Now to turn to our work in lithium sulfur, and and here we say lithium silicon sulfur. In fact, with the Johnson MAF, MAPFI IP acquisition, complementing what we're doing ourselves, we are targeting three anode three, so three different anode compositions with our our lithium sulfur work. So first stage will be a lithium sulfur with a graphitic anode. Second will be a lithium sulfur with a graphitic and silicon added silicon, high silicon anode. The third will be lithium metal. But what your company has done is to has achieved is to make the strategic acquisition of what we understand to be the world's leading lithium sulfur IP portfolio.

14:51 It's a very important move for GELION.

14:55 This stage, I'm gonna pause, and I'm gonna make a a one point that I think is important to understand. You've heard me say that we've taken a deliberate decision to continue and focus our zinc bromide towards the R and D to make it a compelling proposition. And you've also heard that we've made this strategic acquisition of the Johnson Matthey IP to complement our own lithium sulfur IP to put GELION into a very important position in the world energy storage marketplace. Well, the good news is that by doing those two things in our plan at the same time, we're able to still run to the same largely the same cash profile that we had in our original plan.

15:46 It just means that we're not gonna be trying to spend money to to buy into the market or to or to force our way in the market. We will instead do the research so that we can approach the market with a compelling proposition, and it's allowed us to secure this very important IP portfolio for GELION, positioning GELION as a globally important participant in the energy storage industry. So let's talk about And if I could just add something to that. So it's basically a continuation of what we said we were going to do. The only difference is that we are not going to try to get market share by loss lead

16:28 kind of activities, but we just get going with the with the program that we have outlined in terms of cost reduction and the money that we are saving not going out to to gain market share early with a loss leader, that money has been able to be has has been spent now with the in in this strategic acquisition. While it's not externally recognized yet, the decisions that your board has taken has, we believe, positioned GELION very, very strongly. We're very enthusiastic about where we are now. So, okay, GELN is at the global forefront now of advanced lithium sulphur cathode and lithium sulphur battery technology. It's a world leading portfolio, and it's in the most important part of development of the of the whole energy storage industry.

17:22 We shared with you some of our results. Results are continuing. I won't preempt anything, but I can tell you that the test results remain very compelling that we're seeing coming from our work. In fact, those results were so compelling that that was that was the trigger for us to decide to lean into our lithium sulfur work and to do the Johnson and Mathew IP. So the Johnson and Mathew IP guess the Johnson and Mathew IP in a couple of slides. But why? Well, first of all, lithium sulfur. Sulfur can store more energy. In fact, it gives us the potential to store in a lithium cell up to twice the gravimetric energy density.

18:13 Gravimetric energy density, that's really important. Gramammetic energy density means that, for example, things that fly can fly much further because you've got more energy for weight. It can also contribute in many ways to all aspects of of mobility. So gravimetric energy density is a really, really important thing. It can also deliver really compelling cost savings to lithium energy storage. It's safer. Thomas will talk later about and explain to you the the reason that it's safer, but it introduces aspects of of safety to lithium batteries. And, of course, there's abundant sulfur around the world. It's one of the the most abundant materials, and it's a very important consideration when we really know battery chemistries that we don't need a lot of the problematical materials by going this lithium sulfur path.

19:18 So what have we done? Well, our team had indicated from the test we had indicated to our test results that our team were working towards fundamental breakthroughs in a couple of key aspects of the technology. Again, Thomas will talk about that in detail. And that's that sort of center center part of the jigsaw puzzle there. So we knew we were on track. The Johnson Matthey IP surrounds it. It's like a moat. So it does two things for us. There's two things this acquisition does for your company or our company. It, one, allows our gives our technical team a resource that they can use to accelerate. And secondly, it provides a protective moat of IP around everything that we're doing. The second IP acquisition you saw was the IP that had been developed by the GELION team in partnership with Sydney University at Sydney University.

20:21 Now because we were doing that under an agreement. We have an exclusive license to that technology, but it was important at this point in time to convert it to ownership so that we could take this whole IP portfolio forward for you.

20:37 Why do the Supercharge? I touched on that a little earlier for you, but you can see a quote from Danny Danny Kennedy here, who's the chief executive officer of New Energy Nexus, the company behind Supercharge. New Energy Nexus established The US lithium bridge targeting 33,000,000,000 in lithium battery revenues and a 100,000 new jobs in The US. And then these people, the same people came to Australia and said, you know what? 50% of the world's lithium is actually mined in Australia, and there's gotta be a whole lot more we can be doing to the supply chain and the ecosystem in Australia. And that's what GELION is doing. We do our research in Australia, and the Australian government has very solid plans around accelerating our ecosystem that we will be seeking to to take this advantage of.

21:34 I'll pass to Amit for the financial results. Thank you, John. I think no surprises on the results. The results for the six months of December are in line with expectations and what we had expected at the time of IPO. I think we need to give some consideration of how the market has changed, inflation, cost of doing business has gone significantly higher than what what everyone expected in 2021. I think we are we are very proud of what we have achieved in the six months of December. EBITDA loss is in line with what we expected. Cash balance is very, very healthy, £14,400,000 at December 31. Obviously, we have made this acquisition, and the plan is to sell a portion of the IP, which is not go to us to a third party. That discussion is happening. Should that be successful, the net impact on the cash flow will be on £3,000,000.

22:25 So we'll still have a lot of cash left on the balance sheet to kind of pursue and continue with our commercial and technological developments. We'll get to the questions that have been asked, and I'll address the question on cash burn later. This slide, again, no debt. Well well capitalized balance sheet. I think we continue to have a good control on cost. There's a lot of thinking that goes by the board, by the execs to make sure we're taking the right decision for the business and taking care of the cash that we invested in the business as well. On the cash flow, I think what I wanted to flag here is the cash from investing activities looks like a high negative number. Our it's only 400,000 because there is there was around £5,000,000 invested in short term deposits.

23:18 But that's that's pretty much from the financial side. I'll pass it back to you, John, for the summary. Thank you. Alright. I've got a script here. Little so where we position the company now is in a very, very strong position. We have a brilliant team at July. It's a real treasure to be CEO of this group. To be able to work with Thomas and to be able to work with the wonderful team that we had in in July. We had some great scientists, some great engineers, and just great people doing all of the work around them in in July. They truly are, absolutely world class. The Johnson Matthey IP just can't be overstated for how important this was to complement and supplement what we were already doing this July, And it put us in a position how I best describe this? I have to use a technical term, which is Ajit Baiji.

24:20 To Ajit Baiji into and against the best around the world and to establish GELION as a leader in energy storage and as a as a a a real force. Now what can you expect to see from us from here? So I'm off script a little bit. Most of the board meetings I had from when I started with GELNINE were looking at the technology, looking at the match to market, the positioning of the technology, looking at what we wanted to do in terms of systems to be world's best development practice in July, looking at our resource pool, and looking at how to achieve our goals. Where we're focusing now is on commercial outreach and and towards partnerships.

25:07 Two, now that we've we've got the technology, we've got the team, we've got the IP, now what we wanna do is forge towards relationships, around the world, to position that as we start to scale and progress our technology through the different technical readiness stages. Now shareholders, I hope that's gonna be good news for you because I think we've significantly changed, enhanced the value of your of your asset, although it's not yet reflected in perception. And I think that the first way that that will start to happen is by external recognition of just where GELION has got itself into the industry strategically.

25:53 So I'm looking for progress going forward in terms of external recognition of what GELION is doing, and I think that's gonna reflect or that we we plan that that's gonna reflect for you as shareholders in perception of the value of of the company that we're operating for you. So 2023, you'll see progress in our technology readiness, our development pathway for both technologies. You'll see us leveraging our novel zinc bromide technology, focusing the development and targeting it towards these areas where we believe that it can become most compelling. You'll see the the work that we're doing on our lithium sulfur technologies, particularly in the two key areas that Thomas will talk about, polysoft sulfate shuttling and electrolyte capability. You'll see progression on that. You'll see that progression reflected commercially in recognition by external parties, market market parties as well.

27:02 In 2024, you'll see us start to take that zinc bromide technology out for third party validation testing and certification. You'll see the lithium sulfur start to progress on match to market with industry partners. You'll see testing and validation. And, hopefully, we won't be waiting for 2024. You will see progressively as you as we do this July, I'm reaching out to make the best of the government funding to scale up that is opening up around the world today. So certainly in Australia, we'll be working on these Australian initiatives, but GELION now being in a position with strong global compelling technology, we'll be reaching out to make use of government sourcing around the world today as well.

27:59 Right. So I'll take I think yeah. You can just talk. Yeah. Introduce us the the transition results. Alright. So GELION, with our team, have worked on our our purpose mission. And the GELION team recognizes that GELION has a very important role to play in the climate fight and in sustainability. And so the GELION team has adopted global energy freedom as our purpose. Of course, our purpose is to make money for our shareholders and generate return for our shareholders. But as our impact purpose, our purpose is global energy freedom. And in that, we see that our work in GELION can benefit the planet

28:47 in several ways. Global energy freedom to us means freedom from geopolitical control of energy sources. It means freedom from the entrenched polity that come from lack of access to energy and entails freedom from energy having to do damage to the planet. So they're our impact objectives. Our mission to deliver that purpose is to deliver two times the gravimetric energy density, higher safety, and lower cost lithium batteries, four to five years earlier than alternate pathways. Also, we'll be contributing to the mission with our zinc bromide technology.

29:31 We've highlighted the mission here towards the lithium sulfur because that is gonna be a huge impact and contribution in the most important space.

29:40 We believe this to be a significant geopolitical economic competitiveness in strategic importance. What does that mean? It means the stuff that we're doing in making batteries that can take go further with less with higher gravimetric energy density, lower cost and safety, and makes all the things that they're used in more competitive. So we're aiming to get GELION to a position where if you make a car using our batteries, it's more competitive than someone else's car. And that's our outreach from a industry

30:11 and government perspective. We believe that if we execute this well, and there's always risk in every as in every sort of high technology and innovation game. But we believe if we execute well, we're lucky, we get a few things going in our favor, we can cut three to four years out of the industry's time frame to achieve the sort of goals that we have. And And that'll make a huge impact toward climate targets. We wanna manufacture gigawatt hours of of of batteries in Australia, and we wanna hit the global supply chain, maximum impact in the global supply chain. And we wanna add value, maximum value in in what they're doing. We've got the right team to do it.

30:59 We have a great team to do this, and this has been the most exciting thing for me personally. The reason that I joined GELION was to be able to work with Thomas. Thomas has already been successful with a number of technologies that he has developed that are used globally today. So that's a match a matchless actual achievement. Here is one more technology, and the opportunity to steward that technology from a commercial standpoint is a real honor. But when you look at the picture on the right as well, there are some incredible people inside GELN. So we have the right team. And now pass to Thomas. Right. Okay. So thanks thanks very much to be able to give a little bit of a more of a technology deep dive. It won't be too deep. But but just before I go on to lithium sulfur, I just wanted to highlight that the fact that we've established now the zinc bromide, the zinc bromide technology that we can do a fast discharge, that that that is really a very, very compelling advantage over net asset batteries in a range of applications, especially power supplies, etcetera.

32:11 So that gives that gives this this match to market work that was led by John with his deep experience in the lead acid battery really showed us that that is where the the the juicy morsels are. And so we are we are we are very much focusing on executing on that on that opportunity now. So well, we talked a lot about lithium sulfur being a a a better proposition in terms of gravimetric energy density and anything that is whether it's an issue, so especially mobility, that is, of course, a major advantage. Ships will grow will will will you know, electric ships will sail or go go for longer. Drones will fly longer.

32:58 Submarines will stay underwater for longer, etcetera. But also, of course, EV vehicles, electric vehicles will will will go for a lot further, and range anxiety will be a thing of the past with our batteries as we move forward. So what are the two problems in lithium sulfur battery technology?

33:22 They are basically a good thing and a bad thing in the in the same in the same state. So if I have sulfur on the one side and lithium on the other side, the sulfur can slowly migrate towards the lithium side and effectively corrode it. It makes a crust, and that deactivates the battery. And depending on how one has built that battery and formulated the insights, that can happen rapidly after just a few cycles or maybe 50 cycles or a 100 cycles. And and that that that is a big problem that needs to be overcome. The key IP that has been developed by GELINE was or is a set of technologies, technology approaches, platforms to handle this particular problem of polysulfide.

34:13 However, there's also a benefit to this problem, and the benefit is the safety. Because if I have a mechanical deformation of my battery, an accident, if I have some other physical event happening to the battery from the outside, if there was a thermal event, a fire or whatever, the battery will actually self deactivate in this process because the sulfur will just go across to the lithium side, form this crust, and the thing will will will be rendered very safe. So that is the dual the the dual edge sword. On the one hand, we need to handle the polysulfide shuttling, but at the same time that we have this problem makes the battery very safe. Our IP handles the polysulfide chafflin, so we have the best of both worlds.

35:02 The second problem is that needs to be overcome, it is overcome largely with the acquisition of the JM IP, is the electrolyte compatibility. So we have, on the one hand, a sulfur cathode and on the other hand, a lithium anode and the electrolyte. So the liquid in which the ions move backwards and forwards to mirror the movement of electrons on the outside of the battery, so an ion current inside the battery, electric current outside the battery. And this liquid tends to really destroy the graphite side, the lithium ion side, if it's compatible with sulfur, and it will destroy the sulfur side if it's compatible with the lithium anode.

35:54 So we have now accessed and already have started to formulate some of our own solutions within GELINE of electrolyte formulations which overcome this problem and actually make this dream become a reality. So this is a graphical representation of of of the first issue, the polysulfide's shuttling. So if you have a look at the right hand bottom graphic, it's it's basically dissolving bits of sulfur moving. Now my computer is just dying. That's not good. I've gotta go across. So that was a small tech problem, but we are we are good. Am I still Yeah. Am I? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I've stopped. So on the bottom right hand corner there is a is is is the is a graphic where we see sulfur being dissolved and not managed well and going towards the top, which has the lithium anode and and therefore will form this crust.

37:00 On the right hand side, we see our technology represented by a box, and this box basically traps the lithium traps the sulfur as it is dissolving into the battery. And you can conceptualize it like a ball made out of Velcro, and that Velcro attaches the the sulfur attaches to this Velcro reversibly. So I'm discharging and charging. It comes on on and off these these Velcro balls. Think of them like policemen catching robbers, whatever whatever works for you. So that technology is very successful and has extended the lifetime compared to what's out there with other technologies very significantly.

37:46 And we are moving and we're moving forward to to to really getting that to a to a very commercially attractive proposition. Next slide, please.

37:58 And here is some now a little bit older data that shows that we can do around 300 cycles to to that 20% capacity degradation, and we currently have tests, which we would be announcing in the in in in the next in the near future. So I don't want to preempt anything in terms of news flow, but they look extremely good. So we're very confident about some positive announcements around this technology. Next slide. And so this this graphic just illustrates again what I was saying about the electrolyte, about the compatibility of electrolytes first that we have the lithium on the one side and the sulfur on the other, that we need to have an electrolyte that speaks to both and can accommodate both, and and that we are very confident of being able to do that. We've done it already internally and with the Johnson and Mackie IP.

38:56 We have a whole deep mode of electrolytes,

39:00 if you excuse the pump, that allows us that allows us to to to address this problem very well. Next slide. And so what does it allow us to do? It allows us to really increase the energy density. And, yeah, depending on how you calculate and depending on how you assemble this, it can go up to two times current gravimetric energy density, so double the energy for the same weight. But here, it comes a little bit finessing because we are platform technology with our polysulfide shuttling approach. And that is we can interact with three different types of lithium anodes.

39:46 There's one which is in your iPhone right now, which is a lithium graphite anode, and we've got some fantastic results, which we will be publishing soon. Then we have lithium silicon graphite anodes. They are able to increase the energy density of the battery. The current one, the lithium graphite, just is the same energy density as what you have now in your in your iPhone battery, but it comes at a much lower price and without the trouble of potentially causing a fire. But then if I add silicon to it, the second type of anode, I get much higher energy density close to double what's available right now. And then the third anode we can match our sulfur technology to is that of just lithium metal.

40:36 And and so we are we are very flexible and able to partner with a range of different partners out there in the in the in the the battery world. Cost savings. Yeah. We can go back. So cost savings are substantial because sulfur is very abundant and is is is is is now a minor component of the cost of a battery, whereas the current cathode, the nickel manganese cobalt oxide, represents about 60% of the cost of a battery with the with the sulfur that is that is much, much less. So if you go next slide, please. I talked about the differences in energy density. So here is a breakdown of of of what a battery cost in terms of its components. What you can see is that by far largest component currently in the in the in your iPhone battery is the cathode, which is about a $103 per kilowatt hour. If you replace that with our sulfur, it it drops down almost by a factor of 10.

41:41 Then we have added the different bits and pieces to indicate what it would look like if we have a high silicon anode, and that that is the anode that gives then rise to about double the energy density to what is currently in in in a lithium ion battery. And even at that stage, although we have now other elements which are a little bit more expensive, we still come in way below the cost of the current batteries that are out there. So it's safer, it's cheaper, and it lasts twice as long. How good is that? Sulfur itself is not a supplier problem. It's the fifth most abundant element in the Earth's crust. And even if we have a massive explosion in terms of production of lithium sulfur batteries, we will hardly scratch the surface of solar supply.

42:35 And there are, of course, suppliers which are really keen to enter into the green energy transition, and those suppliers are refineries that desulfurize the the the do a highly desulfurization of of crude oils and therefore produce a lot of high quality sulfur. And if they can use that sulfur to help enhance and accelerate the energy transition, that is a good match and a good win win for everybody concerned. Next slide. And this is the puzzle piece that we have seen already. And, really, the the key of it is our bit, which is a polysulfide shuttling technology, and that is what was missing in the patent portfolio that we acquired. But there's a lot of IP around our our polysulfide sharpening technology that protects us and allows us to really apply very well.

43:32 And so overall, it's a very synergistic acquisition of of of of those technologies. Next slide. And I think I'll hand over to John for some closing remarks. Okay. So in summary, the right team the right team to be delivering success on the technology and the assets that China has. We're learning our portfolio, 82 portfolios, moly anode scope for for our work. Next steps, We're absolutely serious about the way that we're going to exploit, progress this work. So we're embarking on enhancement of our systems approach of a total quality TRO approach.

44:18 We welcome the engagement from credential partners as we do that. We're ambitious. We would we aim to get a broad adoption, greater than 70% adoption of lithium sulfur as the cathodes for lithium technologies globally. We aim to, in an Australian term, being an Australian, paddle really hard, get to the top of the wave on battery high performance, and then surf the front. And we're out there at the moment actively seeking industry partners and government support towards strategic funding to accelerate our work towards what we consider to be the world's most important or best battery innovation.

45:07 So thank you today. Thank you for entrusting your company and your investment to to us. I think we're progressing very strongly and happy to take questions. That's fantastic. Thank you very much indeed for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, do please continue to submit your questions using the Q and A tab situated in the top right hand corner of your screen. Just while the team take a few moments to review those questions, I'd like to remind you the recording of the presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A can be accessed from your investor dashboard. As you can see, not that you've had a great amount of time to have a look at them, guys, but we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. So thank you to everyone for submitting those. If I may just start with the first question, and I think I will probably combine two here together for you, Amit. It reads as follows: to be? Have significant shareholders indicated they'll participate in any future fundraise? And just to sort of blend in with that, when does GELION expect to be cash positive?

46:08 Thank you, Paul. So I'll the question. So our average cash burn a month is around £600,000. But you have I think what I would like to ask investors is to consider what we have achieved since the IPO. Getting the Australian trial on foot, manufacturing those factories, developing the BMS system wasn't part of the plan when we started the IPO program. So, if you consider what has been achieved within the same budget that we had at the time of IPO, so it's a massive achievement from a business perspective. We also did the IP acquisition. I think what what I want to flag there is why that was so strategic for us. The estimated investment for that IP portfolio is around a £100,000,000, and that's and that also includes over ten years of hundreds of scientists working on that research program.

47:00 So not not just from a quantum perspective, but also why it was so strategic, why and how it accelerates our development program is something that we should consider. So cash on that calculation can be done based on our average cash burn. Significant shareholders indication, I think we are not discussing any capital raise program at this point in time, but we have full support of our shareholders. We are doing our investor road shows now. And the investors that we have met, we have got their full support in terms of our strategy and what we're trying to achieve. So I'll I'll kind of pause there. In in terms of, cash positive, I think we just heard from John as to what our plans for the next twelve months are. We just acquired the IV portfolio, which has significantly changed our, changing our plans as to how we want to achieve. So we need some time to kind of work through what does it mean for us from a numbers perspective, from a milestones perspective, and we'll report back to you in the next three months or so.

47:54 Thanks, Andy. I know that explicitly, we we haven't spoken to any any of our shareholders yet about raising cash Yeah. At all. We are, as I said, working hard now that we have the IP portfolio on our planning for how the the the link between our technology and the market and how we will progress progress that and which partners we'll work alongside. Yeah. So we'll come back to with this sort of phase that we're doing now, we'll be we'll come back and update our shareholders on the the plan that we adopt. And if I can also add, right, like, terms of support from institutional shareholders, the best measure is if they continue to hold their shares that they came in at the time of IPO.

48:45 So as far as I'm aware, none of the shareholders have sold any of the shares so far, Plus, some of our large institutions have continued to acquire some shares through the last twelve and eighteen months as well, which is kind of from our perspective, that's a good solid support from them. Yeah. Like like, he initiated that your CEO is acquiring shares of Yeah. And and John John has been acquiring shares progressively as well. And I should say there was one question about directors when they can acquire shares or not. Some of us are part of what's called a concert party, so myself included. So if I were to buy one extra share, I would have to launch the formal takeover bid. So the fact that I haven't bought is not at all a sign that I don't believe in the company. It's just I haven't got enough cash to take over. Fantastic. Thank you, professor.

49:34 The next question we've got here. After the twelve month research refinement period and subsequent validation of Endure towards lead acid applications, how confident are you that the industry will be willing to adopt the battery technology? And the second part, will the validation period of the battery be in concert with any industry players similar to what is occurring at the Asiana? Yeah. Okay. I'll take the question. So firstly, research is research. So in research, you have risk. You have technical risk. You have competitive risk. You have market risk. On the assumption that we're able to achieve the research targets that we've got, we'll have a compelling proposition. That's the goal of doing the research. Now I did say that I have had a a big a lot of experience with the lead acid ecosystem and the manufacturers of the lead acid ecosystem.

50:25 There are other competitive technologies out there, so the market is always developing. But if we can get our zinc bromide technology to achieve those extra hurdles that we set before, the ability to operate ad hoc with strong control of dendrites, the ability to sit top of charge and have dendrite management and our lower cost and lower impedance current collectors, all of which are is our R and D program, then we'll position the technology as a really compelling proposition in those markets. So that makes me confident. But we will be doing the we will be doing the research towards those goals this year. That's great. Thank you, John. Next one we've got here is what market segment target are you looking at with its batteries which are producing the lead acid battery factory?

51:25 So first first of all, I think we have a super compelling proposition once we've got those research goals on any activity in the lead acid industry that needs high power discharge. And and, frankly, that's that's the bulk of the bulk of the industry today. So the largest parts of those markets. So we actually see it, you know, not in the face of the lead acid manufacturers. We we wanna work with the lead acid manufacturers, we wanna work with the lead acid ecosystem as an extension for the markets that they service, and that will be the approach that we're taking when we go to market. That's great. Thank you, John. Next question we've got here is, will it be possible for GELN to build a mega battery for use in place for the presently favored lithium ion type of very large solar energy units such as the one in South Australia?

52:15 Hell, yeah. In fact, down that path, we're probably gonna be taking the the lithium sulfur. So the using just the graphitic anode on the path combining our sulfur technology with just a graphitic anode, then what we do is we make a cell which would be very suitable for the application that you describe that would be a a very low cost cell and a very safe cell. And and that's what that particular part of the market demands. But that market today is a lithium market. The majority of that market is a lithium lithium market. So we think that of our two technologies for that particular use case, we'll target it with the lithium sulfur with the graphitic anode.

53:09 Fantastic. Thank you, John. Right. The next question we've got here is, given that Tesla is the EV leader moving towards their batteries being 4,680 cylinder format, can the technology be deployed in four six eight zero, and will GELINE focus on this format? That's a that's a very direct and technical question. I can tell you that I'm doing this call from London. On my way to London, I came through Singapore. Why is that relevant? When I was in Singapore, I was talking with influential people from the from the industry in trying to understand the the market trends. There's actually a bifurcation at the moment in the automotive electrical vehicle market. On one vector, people are going towards high performance, and that's where we're going with our lithium silicon sulfur and our lithium metal and our sulfur technology.

54:03 There's another vector, and and those two vectors that that first vector tends to be happening in North America. The second vector is one towards low cost, and that on that second vector, that's where at each risk. So the the most direct answer to your question is, yes, we can with time direct at the at the specifically at forty six eighty. In the first instance, we'll be we'll be targeting a pouch hook. Oh, I love this next question. Fantastic. You you've got there ahead of me, John. Thank you. Well, I'll read it out anyways. Why will you succeed whilst the company size of Johnson Matthey has decided to quit?

54:51 I don't think Johnson Matthey quit. Johnson Matthey made a decision about where they wanted to focus. Johnson Matthey is a extraordinary catalytic technology company. It's it's a very successful company doing that that work. And if you just look at their annual annual report or their their website, you'll see that what they're doubling down is in what they're they're doing well. Their technology and the technology that combines with our own is very important in the in the battery and energy storage industry. So if I was just Matthew and I had that technology, then I'd be facing a really tough decision. Do I wanna go all in on energy storage? Because you're gonna have to go all in to compete with the giants in energy storage, the LGs, CATLs, and and and so on.

55:49 And it's a little bit outside of where Johnson Matthey is all in at the moment. And, obviously, they've decided to to double down on on on the area that they're strong today, which is a very sound business decision. So we're little GELION. How how can we succeed? Well, obviously, as little GELION and little nipple GELION, we have opportunity to enter the supply chain in different ways and with different objectives than what Johnson and Maffei might, the type of approach that Johnson Matthey might try to to follow. And we've got some pretty ambitious ideas at the moment about how we're gonna pull that off and and what we're gonna do.

56:37 So the strict answer is, technically technically, if you talk at a chance from a technology point of view, Johnson Matthey and the science team in Johnson Matthey did an incredible job. They they they were at the forefront of the industry right there. So there was never I don't think there's ever a question from the Johnson Matthey side that they were able to deliver the technology. They proved they could deliver the technology. I think it was just a commercial decision by their leadership about whether that was the right commercial direction for it. So so they certainly had the capability to deliver technology and showed that. Now as stewards of that technology with our team, we believe we can continue that journey and and deliver the technology. No question on that. That there was there was no technological reason that it couldn't could be sound. And we've got all of those different levers that we can use as a small nimble tech well nimble company to actually commercialize it to great benefit of their shareholders.

57:41 That's great. Thank you very much indeed. Next one we've got here. The last update, the directors indicated there'd be a significant effort to raise awareness with investment institutions about GELN's plans and technology to lift the share price. What's been done to raise awareness about GELN and why has there been no significant movement in the share price? Is the company significantly undervalued? What's the team doing to address this? So a fair few questions in one there for you. Thank you, John. So so first of we are doing a lot more to raise awareness about July, and you are we I think, you know, it's like snowball, living downhill, and you start to get a momentum. I hope I hope that the shareholders on the call have seen there has been progression in the information and the progress that we're we're making.

58:29 Now, as I said earlier in this presentation, we've reached this milestone in our company where we've got the technology and the and our IP and all that sort of locked away. It is important for us not just from the the perspective of of the share market, but it's also very important to us from the perspective of the commercial negotiations that we wanna engage in, that the that the profile of July continues to be lifted. So that remains a goal. We will continue to push on that because we want to be seen and treated with respect in the industry with where we we where we believe we stand in terms of the significance of this company and its team.

59:17 Great. Thank you very much, John. Next we've got here is, will a GELION battery ever have a place in the multitude of homes with solar panels looking for energy storage at a reasonable price? How would it compare with the Tesla Powerwall, the new Enphase IQ five? Okay. So just to go back to the last question before I do that, from my own perspective, I wasn't restricted by commerce, and I saw this as an opportunity at this point in time. So moving on to the second question here, Will we have a place in the multitude of homes with solar panels? Yes. Yes. We will. However, compared with Tesla Powerwall or the new Infiniti IQ five, their end use products that would use cells, and I believe that GELION's path into products like that is likely to be going to be by going in earlier in the supply chain.

1:00:10 And we would like to think that in the fullness of time, if we can secure what we the position that we're targeting for our lithium sulfur, that it will be adopted into many different products around the world in those market sectors. That's great. Thank you very much indeed. We've got a few questions now, sort of moving on to zinc bromide. So the first one reads, what are some examples of application in the high discharge sector of the lead acid market that GELN zinc bromide solution will be relevant for? And what proportion of the overall lead acid market does high discharge constitute? A very large percentage of the lead acid market, and it services sectors like, for example, the critical power systems that back up the Internet or telecom telecom services.

1:01:01 There's two aspects to think about here. Our energy density is roughly the same as a lead acid battery within a rule of thumb. It's differences in gravimetric and volumetric energy density. But because we can use a 100% of state of charge and because we have this advantage where we actually get more out during a a high power discharge, that means both that we can pack more energy into a smaller space and we can do it at a lower cost. So think about those reserve power applications. The only thing I'll caveat caveat that with just to be reasonable is that there are other technologies that we'll also be trying to break in there, like sodium ion as well. So we not only have to benchmark ourselves against lead acid, but we have to to be to be to gain real success for our shareholders, we have to benchmark and and seek to attain performance goals and benchmark against the new and introducing technologies as well. That's where we'll be at. But the speed of this charge is higher and faster than for certainly mine.

1:02:13 Yep. It's it's a it's a great option to to take some zinc bromide in those applications. That's great. Thank you, Ben. Next one we've got here. With the zinc bromide batteries, the research to high c rating in reducing and dendrite speculative or in advanced stage of development? So the our zinc bromide cells today can handle high speed discharge. So we if we do a high speed charge at the moment, we will develop or have an accelerated effect of developing dendrites. So, you know, people had thought in the past that this has been symmetric.

1:03:00 When you're doing things like reserve power, the the charge is actually slow. Because what you do in reserve power is there's been a power failure. You you dump energy into the into the power failure quickly while you start a generator. And then the generator runs, and the and the grid comes back on, and you've got plenty of time to to charge afterwards. So you don't have to force a a high speed charge into the technology. I guess from a market perspective, we hadn't in the past made that relationship that the application can be asymmetric. We can handle a fast discharge, which we can do today, and a slow a slow charge. The second part of the question, if it was pertaining to our work on dendrite control, our dendrite control, the advanced dendrite control we wanna do is the research project.

1:03:54 We're pretty excited because it can can open up a whole lot of opportunity for GELINE if we pull off that research project. And, you know, we've got a great part of our team. We we we have great team members on the lithium sulfur side, but we also have great team members on our zinc bromide side. These are phenomenal scientists, and we're very excited by the challenge that we set ourselves on the research side. So we pull that off. It's gonna be really important. But the slow charge, fast discharge is not speculative. That's proven. That's proven. We can do that one today. Thank you very much. I think we've time for for one more question. See we've just gone over the hour. Is there a risk that zinc bromide does not have a market advantage if LIS is successful?

1:04:44 I don't think that's going to be a real problem for John. I mean, to be fair, I anticipate we can get there with both technologies. But if we make one either of our technology, the leader in the in the ecosystem, you know, if we achieve our goals, it's gonna be a great outcome for our shareholders. But there's always the advantage of the zinc bromide system in terms of temperature. So zinc bromide will always have a very large temperature window and will be very robust in terms of in terms of, you know, operating down to zero state of charge. They that is inherently not possible for lithium based technologies, which have to be managed more carefully in terms of the discharging profiles and the environmental considerations in terms of heat.

1:05:35 So, therefore, those advantages in terms of zinc bromide stay, and they're pretty unique to zinc bromide. So so the cannibalization of one with the other is not really gonna happen. So there's a lot to be done. A lot being a lot being done. There's always risk in everything you do, but you've got a great team out here doing their best for the for the shareholders. That's That's fantastic. I think you have covered off all those questions. You can. Of course, any further questions that have come through the team, we will review your questions and we'll publish responses where appropriate to do so on the investor meet company platform. John, I know you did have a a quick conclusion, but any final just words before we redirect the attendees to give you some feedback, which I know you'll greatly appreciate? No. Just grateful to everybody out there for your support of July.

1:06:23 I know there's probably some of our team on the line if they are. Thanks for all the work that well, hard work everybody's putting into making it happen. You're on a you're on a great ship here Yeah. In July. It's risky and everything, but, wow, the the prospects, if we pull off the ambitious plan that we've got, is is phenomenal. So thank you. Thank you. That's fantastic. Thank you all for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close this session? You should be automatically redirected to provide your feedback, and all the team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, and I know it's greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team at GELN PLC, I would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That concludes today's session, and good morning to you.