Highlights

  • Dr Jong Ha Park has been appointed lead researcher on the TEMPERON programme, based at Rice University's Preston Innovation Laboratory.
  • Peer-reviewed results published in the Journal Small show carbon nanotube fibre sustaining more than 1,000 thermal cycles in air at 25 MW per kilogram, against a comparable nichrome sample failing after five cycles.
  • Carbon nanotube fibre demonstrated a failure temperature of approximately 2,300 degrees Celsius in non-oxidising gases, compared to approximately 1,400 degrees Celsius for nichrome.
  • Pure Resources holds DARPA ERIS Marketplace Awardable status for its carbon nanotube fibre three-dimensional heat sink solution, with structured engagement with US defence and national laboratory counterparties continuing.

Pure Resources Limited (ASX:PR1) shares last traded at $0.30. The company announced on 3 September 2026 an update on its TEMPERON carbon nanotube fibre thermal management programme, covering a key research appointment and newly published peer-reviewed data on the material's performance under extreme heat.

The advanced materials and critical minerals company, which is pursuing an integrated defence materials platform strategy, said the update consolidates all activity under a single Brand and provides independent third-party data supporting its thermal management technology development.

TEMPERON Brand and Programme Structure

TEMPERON is described as the company-owned brand and Trademark for its carbon nanotube fibre (CNTF) thermal management programme, consolidating all CNTF activity, technology and future products under a single identity. The company said Rice University remains the Research and Development partner and the collaboration agreement, including its joint intellectual property ownership provisions, is unchanged.

The company noted that TEMPERON supersedes prior external references to the Rice University collaboration and to HyperFlux, with all external references to the programme now using the TEMPERON mark. Patent and licensing documentation is currently being prepared, and trademark applications for TEMPERON are being progressed, though registration has not yet been granted.

Lead Researcher Appointment

Dr Jong Ha Park has been appointed lead researcher on the TEMPERON programme, based at Rice University in the Preston Innovation Laboratory within the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the laboratory of Professor Daniel J. Preston, one of four Rice faculty leads on the programme. Dr Park holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, completed in 2026, with a background in thermal transport and scalable fabrication of thermal and energy conversion devices.

Dr Park's publication record includes co-authored research in Nature Communications on a passive cooling system for photovoltaic modules, and in Science Advances and Energy Conversion and Management on an ammonia sorption thermal battery. The company said Dr Park has 18 publications and 273 citations recorded as at 17 August 2026, and that Professors Matteo Pasquali, Daniel Preston, Geoffrey Wehmeyer and Vanessa Sanchez continue to lead the broader Rice faculty team.

Peer-Reviewed Extreme Heat Performance Data

The Rice faculty group leading the TEMPERON programme published peer-reviewed results in the journal Small, quantifying carbon nanotube fibre performance under high specific power loading in flowing gas. The study was conducted and funded independently of Pure Resources, with the company confirming it is not a party to or funder of the research.

The reported results show a CNTF failure temperature of approximately 2,300 degrees Celsius in non-oxidising gases, against approximately 1,400 degrees Celsius for nichrome under comparable conditions. A single CNTF filament sustained more than 1,000 thermal cycles in air, equivalent to approximately 5.5 days of continuous cycling, at a specific power loading of 25 MW per kilogram with no measurable change in resistance, while a comparable nichrome sample failed after five cycles at a lower loading of 20 MW per kilogram.

The study also measured heat transfer coefficients of 1,500 to 1,700 W per square metre per kelvin for forced convection in air, and found that CNTF fabrics heated more uniformly than rigid nichrome mesh with reduced hot spot formation, an effect attributed to the axial thermal conductivity of the fibre spreading heat along its length.

Strategic Relevance and Next Steps

The company said accelerator thermal design power is now the binding constraint on rack density in artificial intelligence data centres, with copper and aluminium fin architectures at their practical limits on conductivity, mass and achievable geometry. Pure Resources said TEMPERON targets this constraint directly, using a fibre at roughly half the density of aluminium with axial thermal conductivity of up to approximately 600 W per metre per kelvin.

Programme objectives under the Rice collaboration include CNTF thermal property optimisation, three-dimensional knitted heat sink design, and benchtop demonstration against conventional aluminium and copper fin architectures under conditions representative of data centre operation. The company holds DARPA ERIS Marketplace Awardable status for its CNTF three-dimensional heat sink solution, and said structured engagement with United States defence and national laboratory counterparties continues.

What to Watch Next

Given the company's stated programme objectives, benchtop demonstration results comparing CNTF heat sink architectures against conventional aluminium and copper fin designs would represent a significant technical milestone to monitor. Progress on patent and licensing documentation, along with formal registration of the TEMPERON trademark, are near-term corporate steps flagged by the company.

Any further developments in the company's structured engagement with US defence and national laboratory counterparties, building on its DARPA ERIS Marketplace Awardable status, would be a relevant commercial catalyst for the programme.

Risks

The peer-reviewed data cited in this announcement relates to CNTF used as a resistive heating element immersed in flowing gas, which the company has explicitly stated is not a test of a heat sink. Pure Resources was not a party to, author of, or funder of the underlying study, and the company has cautioned that no assurance can be given the properties reported will translate into a commercially viable thermal management product.

The TEMPERON trademark has not yet been granted registration, and patent and licensing documentation remains in preparation, meaning the company's intellectual property position in this area is still being established.

Key Takeaways

Pure Resources' TEMPERON update combines an internal programme milestone, in the appointment of a dedicated lead researcher at Rice University, with external validation in the form of peer-reviewed data quantifying carbon nanotube fibre's performance advantages over conventional metal elements at extreme temperatures. While the company was not involved in producing the underlying research, it has positioned the published results as supporting evidence for the properties its own heat sink development programme depends upon, particularly as thermal design constraints become a limiting Factor in artificial intelligence data centre infrastructure. The programme's progression toward benchtop demonstration against conventional materials remains the key technical milestone still to be achieved.