Canadian mining firm Ceylon Graphite has reported a significant breakthrough in the performance of its vein graphite anode material in lithium-ion coin cells.
Commercial spherodized vein graphite material was tested in a lithium-ion coin cell by UK organisation WMG, part of the University of Warwick’s Energy Innovation Centre.
Results came in a 382mAh/g for reversible capacity (RC), which is beyond that of commercially used synthetic graphite that has an RC of 363mAh/g.
Data was collected from five separate coin cells for Ceylon’s graphite and for commercial synthetic supplier materials.
Tests showed that at C/5 stable cycling gave an average reversible capacity of 353mAh/g with standard deviation 9mAh/g over 25 cycles compared to the Synthetic supplier 307mAh/g.
The performance is due to the high crystallinity of Sri Lankan vein graphite, say the company.
The initial results show the suitability of the material for lithium ion battery anodes for either stand alone or blending with synthetic graphite.
Ceylon CEO, Don Baxter said: “These results are a highly significant development for Ceylon. The unique characteristics of our Sri Lankan vein graphite combined with our proprietary processing technologies produces a lithium-ion battery with significantly higher power and energy as tested by WMG.
“In addition, we believe that the energy consumption of the end-to-end process of producing battery grade anode material from vein graphite is the lowest, relative to synthetic and flake graphite, because of the fact that vein graphite from Sri Lanka does not require primary processing, due to the high in situ grade above 90%Cg.”
