Lieuwke de Jong is a globally experienced executive and entrepreneur who operates at the intersection of industry, government and innovation. His career spans defense-aligned sectors, aerospace, energy, life sciences and advanced materials and he is known for connecting stakeholders across government, research and industry to turn strategic intent into practical, investable outcomes.
He has held senior roles at, among others, Shell, CAE and KPMG Transaction Services, and led PPK Group’s advanced materials business securing partnerships with global companies including Boeing.
As Founder and Managing Director of Never Odd Or Even, he provides advisory and fractional C-suite leadership to deep-tech and innovation-driven ventures worldwide.
Lieuwke is a Certified Chair™ Advisory Board Centre, and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD).
Tell us about Sweet Atoms. What problem is the business solving?
Sweet Atoms Pty Ltd is developing advanced engineered carbon materials and functional coatings, and manufacturing capability for applications and critical technologies where performance, reliability, and secure supply matter. We began with energy storage, addressing the need for materials that can enable better-performing, more resilient energy systems. Our broader focus is to translate this capability into strategically important sectors, such as Deep Tech, Defence, Aerospace, Emerging Technologies and Hardware, while building the manufacturing know-how and supply-chain resilience Australia needs.
Semiconductors are an emerging application area for us. Advanced carbon materials can play important enabling roles in areas ranging from ultra-high-purity filtration and contamination control to thermal management, conductive materials and extreme-environment coatings. As semiconductor devices become more powerful and manufacturing requirements more demanding, materials performance increasingly becomes part of the innovation challenge. We see an opportunity to work with industry partners to determine where Sweet Atoms’ carbon platforms can solve specific problems in that ecosystem.
The company is headquartered in Brisbane (Queensland, Australia) and manufactures its high-performance carbon products from renewable biomass and agricultural waste, as well as other feedstocks.
The company has two materials categories – activated and hard carbons which are our commodity materials, and specialty carbons, which are our frontier materials. Our product portfolio currently spans three proprietary materials:
1. CleanShift C – a biomass-derived hard carbon delivering reversible capacity of approximately 720 mAh/g for lithium and 330 mAh/g for sodium, materially exceeding conventional benchmarks and positioning it as a high-performance anode material for next-generation battery systems;
2. CleanEdge C – premium engineered carbon platform, combining ultra-high surface area, high purity, hierarchical porosity, and excellent electrochemical performance in a sustainable biomass-derived material. Developed to address demanding requirements across energy storage, defense, aerospace, semiconductor, quantum technologies, and advanced functional coatings, CleanEdge C represents the company’s core platform for high-value advanced carbon applications.; and
3. Elastic Diamond – the company’s frontier novel material and is a flexible glassy carbon coating that operates in extreme environments up to 2900°C, reduces corrosion rates by up to ten times in magnesium-based systems, and suppresses dendrite formation in metal-ion batteries, with further applications in defense stealth coatings, aerospace, optoelectronics and biomedical implantable.
Lieuwke, you’ve recently joined the team. What is it about Sweet Atoms that attracted you?
Sweet Atoms combines a compelling technology opportunity with a practical, commercially focused mission. It is not simply developing materials in a laboratory; it is translating advanced materials capability into products and manufacturing capacity with real industrial and strategic impact.
The team has an ambitious vision, and I was particularly drawn to the opportunity to help build an Australian company with global relevance. The disruptive potential of products such as Elastic Diamond was also a strong reason for me to join the company’s journey. These technologies can create opportunities in both established markets and new, emerging applications.
Sweet Atoms started with energy storage — what made you broaden the scope into aerospace, defense, and navy applications?
We always recognized that the underlying materials and manufacturing capability could have applications beyond energy storage. The material properties that make our carbons exceptional for energy storage, extreme temperature resistance, chemical inertness, structural flexibility, are the same properties that matter in aerospace, defense and naval environments.
The ChipStart AU accelerator helped us identify and validate the most relevant adjacent and disruptive Deep Tech markets, giving us the confidence to pursue those verticals deliberately rather than opportunistically.
These sectors share a need for high-performance, dependable materials and secure supply chains, making them a natural fit for Sweet Atoms’ technology and mission.
There’s a growing push for sovereign capability in critical materials. What role do you see Sweet Atoms playing in that space?
We see Sweet Atoms contributing to the return of advanced manufacturing capability to Australia. Sovereign capability is not only about access to raw materials; it is also about the ability to process, manufacture, qualify, and supply high-value materials locally. Our aim is to help close that gap by building capability here in Australia, while creating technologies and products that can compete internationally.
Australia’s closest strategic partners face similar supply-chain vulnerabilities and have identified advanced carbon materials and critical-mineral processing as priorities for domestic and allied supply. Sweet Atoms’ strategic ambition is to contribute to both Australia’s sovereign capability and the resilience of allied supply chains.
That direction is reflected in the United States–Australia Framework for Securing of Supply in the Mining and Processing of Critical Minerals and Rare Earths. The Framework is explicitly focused on strengthening secure supply chains for materials needed for defence and advanced technologies, including through coordinated investment in Australian and US processing and manufacturing capability. For Sweet Atoms, the broader strategic message is important: Australia’s opportunity is not simply to supply raw materials, but to move further up the value chain by developing and manufacturing the advanced carbon materials that underpin critical technologies.
Five years from now, is Sweet Atoms a domestic supplier, an exporter, or something bigger?
Our initial focus is on building a sustainable, recurring-revenue business through long-term customer partnerships. We want to become a trusted supplier embedded in our customers’ supply chains, supporting them over the full life of their programs rather than simply selling a one-off product.
Over time, we expect this foundation to support both domestic supply and export opportunities. Our ambition is to build an Australian advanced-manufacturing business with enduring customer relationships and global relevance.
How can potential customers, feedstock suppliers, or investors get in touch to explore partnerships?
We are looking to build genuine long-term partnerships with customers, feedstock suppliers, investors, and industry collaborators. For customers, that means working together to understand their requirements, qualify solutions, and establish reliable, ongoing supply of high-quality advanced carbon materials.
A key part of our strategy is building an end-to-end sovereign value chain: securing reliable Australian feedstocks, converting those feedstocks into advanced carbon materials here in Australia, and supplying those materials into sovereign-manufactured applications across energy storage, defence, aerospace, semiconductors and other critical technologies.
We are therefore particularly interested in working with feedstock partners who can contribute to a secure and scalable domestic supply chain, customers who value sovereign and resilient sources of advanced materials, and strategic investors who understand both the commercial opportunity and the strategic value of building that sovereign value chain.
Our ambition extends beyond Australia. Once established and proven here, this model can be replicated in allied markets using locally available feedstocks to create local advanced-carbon manufacturing capability. That gives Sweet Atoms the potential to contribute not only to Australian sovereign capability, but to a distributed and more resilient network of advanced-material supply across allied nations.
For us, sovereign capability is not simply about where the raw material comes from. It is about retaining the technology, processing, manufacturing capability and value creation needed to turn Australian resources into high-value materials and, ultimately, critical technologies.
The best way to start a conversation is through our website at sweetatoms.com or find us on LinkedIn where we share updates on our technology development and commercial progress.
Whether you have a material challenge you think we could help solve, a feedstock that could have greater value, an opportunity to collaborate on technology development, or an interest in investing in the next generation of advanced materials manufacturing – we are a small and accessible team at this stage of the journey and we welcome direct outreach across any of these channels.
Why did you join Silicon Catalyst ChipStart AU, and what do you expect to gain from their 12-month program?
We joined Silicon Catalyst ChipStart AU because of the quality and depth of its network. The program gives us access to experienced industry leaders, technical and commercial mentors, and potential partners who understand the journey from deep technology to market adoption.
Over the 12-month program, we expect to strengthen our commercial strategy, refine our market priorities, and build relationships that are particularly valuable in semiconductor, defence and other strategically important sectors. For a company like Sweet Atoms, that combination of experience, market access, and practical guidance can materially accelerate our progress.
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