Summary
- Haydale reports approximately 28% higher thermal conductivity than its baseline inhibited glycol fluid in current testing.
- The company has signed commercial agreements with Liquitherm and Levidian and is discussing potential deployments covering about 200MW.
- OEM qualification, higher-load testing, and first operator deployments still need to be completed.
Haydale says a graphene-enhanced coolant additive has increased the thermal conductivity of an inhibited glycol fluid by approximately 28% in testing, bringing measured performance close to pure water while retaining the protective properties of glycol.
The AIM-listed advanced-materials company is moving its Super-Efficient Thermal Transfer Fluid, or SETTF, towards commercial data centre qualification after live-silicon testing and agreements with cooling-fluid specialist Liquitherm Technologies Group and graphene producer Levidian.
Haydale and its partners say they are in advanced discussions with data centre operators representing approximately 200MW of capacity, with first installations targeted within 12 months. The company explicitly cautions that there is no certainty those discussions will result in orders.
The technology addresses a familiar compromise in liquid cooling. Glycol is added to cooling loops for freeze and corrosion protection, but it transfers heat less effectively than water. That can increase the flow or temperature difference required to remove the same heat load.
Haydale’s test formulation uses graphene at below 0.05% by weight in an inhibited 22% glycol coolant. The company reports thermal conductivity of 0.625 watts per metre-kelvin at 35°C, compared with 0.6215 W/mK for pure water at the same temperature.
In a live test using a 250W processor, Haydale says the SETTF mixture matched pure water for coolant flow, pump power, and processor temperature across three tests, with no observed settling, fouling, or thickening.
Those results are promising but do not yet amount to full data centre qualification. Haydale says the next stage includes higher-load testing, OEM-specific qualification, longer-term materials compatibility work, and first operator deployments.
That qualification burden is important. Thermal conductivity is only one characteristic of a data centre coolant. Operators and equipment manufacturers also need confidence around corrosion, viscosity, stability, biological growth, electrical properties, interaction with seals and metals, service life, contamination, and maintenance procedures.
The company says earlier generations of its thermal-fluid technology have passed ASTM corrosion testing, while Liquitherm will lead work around formulation and OEM and standards qualification for the commercial product.
Levidian will supply the G3 graphene used in SETTF. Haydale applies its HDPlas functionalisation process to the material, with the objective of keeping graphene dispersed at an unusually low concentration rather than allowing particles to settle or increase fluid viscosity.
The commercial approach is designed as an additive to a coolant already specified by an operator rather than a complete replacement fluid. If qualification supports that method, it could make retrofit deployment simpler because the proposition is to recover some of glycol’s thermal penalty without abandoning its freeze and corrosion protection.
That is particularly relevant as direct-to-chip liquid cooling moves into higher-density AI facilities. More heat at the processor increases pressure on pumps, cold plates, heat exchangers, and facility water systems, while retrofit projects may be constrained by pipework and plant designed for lower loads.
Haydale estimates that the 200MW of capacity currently under discussion would use around 200,000 litres of treated coolant. Using industry comparator pricing, it puts the gross end-market value at $1.6 million to $2.4 million, but stresses that this is not a forecast of revenue to Haydale.
The company also says its existing functionalisation plant in Ammanford has enough capacity to support approximately two million litres of treated coolant annually, which it equates to around 2GW of data centre capacity.
Those capacity and market-value calculations remain illustrative. Actual coolant volume varies with system architecture, and Haydale’s share of any sale will depend on the commercial arrangements with Liquitherm and Levidian.
The next technical threshold is more consequential than the headline thermal-conductivity gain. SETTF has to maintain its behaviour at higher heat loads and over operating periods that reflect real facility maintenance cycles. If it does, the product could offer operators extra thermal headroom without replacing an entire glycol-based loop. If qualification exposes stability, compatibility, or servicing issues, the laboratory advantage will be less useful.
Haydale has now moved the technology from development into application testing with a defined supply chain. Commercial deployment still depends on converting the current 200MW discussion pipeline into qualified installations.
