08-07-2025
Resources Top 5: VHD graphite heat sink a solution to data centre power drain
The VHD Technology graphite heat sink has almost doubled the power load capacity of conventional heat sink materials
Green Technology Metals is well placed to benefit from promising lithium market fundamentals
RC drilling has kicked off at Sipa Resources' Nuckulla Hill gold project in South Australia
Your standout small cap resources stocks for Tuesday, July 8, 2025
Green Critical Minerals (ASX:GCM)
Burgeoning demand for computational power from data centres is placing a strain on all energy sources and storage methods, both traditional and the greener, new-age varieties.
One company seeking to provide a solution with its VHD Technology graphite heat sink is Green Critical Minerals, which rose 18.43% to a daily high of 2.25c and closed at 2.2c with almost 59 million shares changing hands.
Testing of the heat sink, which utilises very high density graphite in technology developed by the company, is turning out highly encouraging results.
The latest Finite Element modelling on the VHD Technology heat sink has demonstrated that it outperforms traditional materials.
GCM commissioned world-leading expert Professor Qing Li, a professor and ARC Future Fellow at the University of Sydney Centre for Advanced Material Technology, to conduct the modelling, comparing the heat dissipation performance against traditional materials.
Green Critical Minerals' (ASX:GCM) heat sink almost doubled the power load capacity of conventional heat sink materials, maintaining microchip temperatures at 70-85 degrees Celsius at power loads of 300 to 400 watts.
Conventional materials are generally capable of maintaining those temperatures at about half that power load, topping out at the 200 to 250W range.
The tests also revealed 'exceptional' thermal diffusivity, rapidly dispersing heat from the microchip base.
These results are promising when considering data centres are leveraging increasingly advanced chip infrastructures demanding higher power inputs, requiring 300W or more.
GCM's heat sink appears to be capable of accommodating those requirements and more, positioning it well for the high-performance microchip sector.
The company's managing director Clinton Booth said the results validated GCM's innovative VHD graphite technology, demonstrating the advantages the heat sinks could offer emerging sectors.
'Effective thermal management is critical for ensuring operational stability and performance continuity in such environments, in reducing data centre capital and operating costs, and in supporting sustainable data centre development,' he explained.
'Our VHD heat sinks deliver industry-leading results, consistently outperforming traditional materials such as conventional graphite, copper and aluminium products.'
Booth said GCM was moving at a rapid pace to ramp-up customer engagement discussions, having received strong interest from a diverse and growing global customer pipeline.
Management sees strong potential to apply the proprietary VHD technology to other thermal products, like cold plates used in liquid cooling solutions.
Green Technology Metals is well placed to benefit from promising lithium market fundamentals that are almost certain to eventuate as demand increases with its strong balance sheet, cost preservation strategy and strong pre-development projects in Canada.
Although the company has been fairly quiet as it preserves capital and optimises expenditure in response to prevailing market conditions, shares increased 28.57% to an intraday high of 2.7c and ended the day up 9.52% at 2.3c.
The current strategy sees the company focusing on preserving capital and prioritising critical-path activities such as permitting, approvals and study work while deferring non-essential expenditure.
Exploration programs have been scaled back and a targeted workforce restructure has resulted in a 40% reduction in staffing levels, retaining only those roles essential to progressing core projects.
Executive management and director fees, including associated superannuation, have been deferred by mutual agreement while contractor expenditure has been materially reduced, with a review of all third-party contracts and legacy commitments underway to ensure alignment with current priorities.
GT1 managing director Cameron Henry said the company remained well-positioned for a future market recovery.
'Recent announcements from the governments of Canada and Ontario, including streamlined approval processes and increased funding for critical minerals, are positive for GT1's projects.'
He said earlier this year a major milestone was reached with the combined resource base now totalling 30.4 million tonnes, largely driven by successful drilling at Root Bay.
'The updated mineral resource estimate for Root Bay is 15.6Mt at 1.29% Li2O, and the PEA has shown a 22% increase in NPV, bolstering the project's economics as a long-term feed source to the planned lithium conversion facility,' he said.
'Our strategy of having projects with lower capex hurdles and locality to infrastructure still remains relevant, and although the current market conditions are extremely challenging the assets and work completed to date by our teams has been well planned and executed on all fronts.'
Reverse circulation drilling has kicked off across Sipa Resources' Nuckulla Hill gold project in South Australia with an 1800m infill campaign to focus on extending mineralisation at Bimba and Sheoak prospects.
The prospects were identified by calcrete sampling in the mid-1990s but no further drilling has been carried out since then, although mineralisation is open at depth and along strike.
Sipa Resources acquired the Nuckulla Hill, Tunkillia North and Skye gold projects in South Australia in February this year allowing it to ramp-up gold exploration while diversifying the asset base to support on-ground operations year-round.
Tunkillia North and Nuckulla Hill host multiple advanced, large-scale gold prospects, while Skye is along strike from Barton Gold Holdings' (ASX:BGD) Gold Bore resource and less than 50km from high-grade intersections generated by Marmota (ASX:MEU) at Aurora Tank.
Bimba and Sheok sit within the Yarlbrinda Shear Zone, which hosts Barton's 1.6Moz Tunkillia deposit.
Australian Pacific Coal (ASX:AQC)
After being reinstated to ASX quotation on July 7 following an announcement about the Dartbrook coal mine in NSW entering voluntary administration, Australian Pacific Coal surged 560% to 3.3c as investors welcomed clearing of the uncertainty and then eased back to 2.6c.
The surge and increased volume prompted a price and trading volume query from the ASX to which AQC responded that it was in compliance with the Listing Rules.
Voluntary administrators were appointed on July 3 for Dartbrook mine, in the NSW Hunter Valley, the mine operators Dartbrook Operations and related entities.
Subsequently secured creditor Vitol Asia advised that it had appointed receivers and managers of the property, including all shares in AQC Dartbrook, holder of AQC's JV interest.
In a statement, AQC said: 'This development has significant implications for the company, as it is unlikely to recover any value from its interest in the Dartbrook mine due to the size of the senior secured debt.
'The company has a contingent liability under a parent company guarantee that exceeds its current assets but directors believe the company remains solvent based on available cash resources.'
Arcadia Minerals (ASX:AM7)
(Up on no news)
Arcadia Minerals (ASX:AM7), a diversified explorer targeting a range of metals, including tantalum, lithium, nickel, PGEs, copper and gold, across projects in Namibia, moved up 38.89% to a daily high of 2.5c.
In late May the company received positive stream sediment results from its TVC lithium and tantalum, and TVC nickel and PGE projects within the Tantalite Valley Ultra Mafic Intrusive Complex (TVC Complex).
The objective of the work was to identify additional potential source areas of mineralisation to guide further exploration and potential drilling with 97 samples collected from drainage systems.
Samples returned elevated levels of mineralisation draining from source areas where historical drilling returned up to 0.65% Ni and 0.16% Cu over 16m.
The samples returned anomalous values for gold, cobalt, chromium, copper, nickel, palladium and platinum.
Anomalous lithium values were confined to the north-west margins of the TVC Complex and three drainage systems in this area returned elevated lithium values.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent financial advice before making any financial decisions. While Green Critical Minerals, Green Technology Metals and Sipa Resources are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.
