Australian battery materials firm Ecograf has announced it can recover 99% of the carbon from used battery feedstock following trials of its lithium-ion anode recycling process.
The firm’s proprietary graphite purification technology was trialled on recycled lithium-ion battery material, which included anode material consisting of natural and synthetic graphite and silicon.
The trials were completed on a number of samples by a ‘confidential’ Germany company in the European country. Trials showed the recovered graphite was around 99% pure.
Ecograf is now evaluating the potential to commercialise its technology as it proceeds to develop a purification facility in Kwinana, Western Australia.
The Kwinana facility will provide a new supply of purified spherical graphite for the lithium-ion battery market from natural flake graphite.
In early March, EcoGraf secured a promise of AUS104 million ($72 million) from the country’s government to build the refinery.
Ecograf has also completed a program to assess and benchmark various global sources of flake graphite as feedstock for the proposed battery graphite manufacturing facility. The company has now selected its preferred graphite feedstocks from existing global producers.
Completion of this program involved detailed evaluation of each feedstock in the company’s piloting facility in Germany. The material from each origin was micronised and spheronised with physical properties and energy consumption assessed to determine operating parameters for each sample.
Two battery products from each sample material were produced: SPG15 (with a medium particle size diameter of 15 micron) and SPG 20 (with a medium particle diameter of 20 micron).