PyroGenesis Canada Inc (PYRGF)

[Tom Joad]

re: metal powder by plasma

I suspect the improvement in the plasma metal powder generators is due to fluid mechanics. Dr. Christopher Twigge-Molecey is a member of the Pyrogenesis board. There's no mention of plasma in the patent, linked below, but a couple of ideas there have me thinking: sublimation, and shear layer. Twigge-Molecey has a doctorate in fluid mechanics.

"A gas mixer is disclosed which is used for mixing different gases in order to obtain a solid by sublimation or chemical reaction." There's the trick I believe, they may be actually atomizing the metal wire to obtain very small liquid drops that cool and solidify.

Gas mixer for sublimation purposes

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You wrote- "I believe this spinn-of is worth double of what you calculated for these big AM companies."

Honestly, I have little feel for the value of the possible spin-off but I did want to add a little structure to speculation. At least we have a believable prior in what I wrote, what Arcam paid for AP&C, $35,000,000 CAD. $50,000,000 for Pyrogenesis spinoff? I think that's possible but I also wanted to write a conservative estimate.

I think it's very safe to assume that plasma generates the best spherical, pure, and fully dense powders for AM so demand will be highest for that technology, however, risks to that assumption are: maybe powders don't need to be that good, and maybe it's possible for AP&C to ramp up production enough to monopolize the powder industry. Right now I'm wishing Pyrogenesis's technology moat was deeper, or at least, better defined. They have something of a moat, but what is it precisely? Here's where I enjoyed my investment in Arcam so much, their technology moat was well defined and so deep that it amounted to a natural monopoly.

Another risk in this investment is that there is no proven industrial management group to build the powder segment up to the level of AP&C. While Pyrogenesis has a history of developing valuable technology, they do not have a history of large scale production. I think it's somewhat similar to the concern we had in the past about Arcam needing to industrialize their machines, and industrialize the production of their machines when at the time they seemed a bit too much like a metal 3d AM boutique.