Declining Costs Expected
At the end of March, the Australian graphite company EcoGraf (WKN A2PW0M / ASX EGR) was able to announce the important news that the commissioning of the material qualification plant (spherical graphite) had begun, which is produced using the proprietary, environmentally friendly process also called EcoGraf. Now, Managing Director Andrew Spinks can further report that they have succeeded in significantly improving the quality of this spherical graphite.
As EcoGraf announces today, the purification of an unpurified, natural spherical graphite (SPG) has now been improved to 99.99% carbon (‘four nines’ or 4N). According to the company, this exceeds the standard requirements of customers in the industry of 99.95%.
As the company further explained, the 4N status was achieved as part of ongoing tests to optimize the purification process. This means that the total impurity of the SPG produced using the environmentally friendly EcoGraf process is now less than 100ppm. And this should also reduce both capital and operating costs, EcoGraf adds!
Improvements Incorporated into Product Qualification Plant
Of course, these improvements will also be applied in the aforementioned product qualification plant. This is a state-of-the-art facility that will use the company’s proprietary EcoGraf HFfree™ technology to produce high-purity battery anode material without the use of highly toxic hydrofluoric acid for the global battery and EV market.
And naturally, these latest improvements will also be incorporated into the independent technical study benchmarking the EcoGraf HFfree™ process against known graphite purification processes. EcoGraf expects this study to be completed shortly.
Conclusion: 2024 can already be rightly described as an eventful year for EcoGraf. After signing a memorandum of understanding for joint recycling of anode material with the German chemical company BASF in February, and shortly after the Helmholtz Institute positively evaluated the performance of the recycled material, the company reported a 127% expansion of graphite resources at its Epanko project in Tanzania in March. Now EcoGraf can also present good news regarding the product qualification plant and the production process. We hope that this trend continues!
