- Leading Edge Materials (LEM) to commence testing of ALD Coatings for Li-Ion battery anode materials
- Woxna is developing the downstream processes required to upgrade the flake graphite products from its fully-built and permitted graphite mine in central Sweden
- To qualify as an active anode material, natural flake graphite has to be milled, spheronised, purified and lastly coated
- The portfolio of projects includes the 100 per cent owned Woxna Graphite mine, Norra Kärr HREE project, and the 51 per cent owned Bihor Sud Nickel Cobalt exploration alliance
- Leading Edge Materials Corp. (LEM) is in the grey and is trading at C$0.33 at 11:44 am ET
Leading Edge Materials (LEM) is developing graphite anode material coating from Woxna using Forge Nano’s Atomic Layer Deposition technology.
Woxna is developing the downstream processes required to upgrade the flake graphite products from its fully-built and permitted graphite mine in central Sweden to active anode materials that can be sold to lithium-ion battery producers in Europe.
To qualify as an active anode material, natural flake graphite has to be milled, spheronised, purified and lastly coated.
A recent price assessment shows average pricing in 2020 for uncoated, natural spherical graphite at around US$3,000 per tonne and coated natural spherical graphite between US$7,000 per tonne and US$12,000 per tonne, with an average price of around US$9,500 per tome for material used in cells for Western OEMs.
Forge Nano’s proprietary ALD technology can be used to apply atomic scale coatings designed to optimize anode materials’ performance.
Atomic Layer Deposition can improve anode materials in several ways; some are increased life cycle, longer charge rate, better conductivity, and improved safety with high performance.
Compared with traditional coating technologies, Forge Nano’s ALD coatings offer added benefits such as controlling the thickness of the coating at a nanoscale, lower costs, reduced carbon footprint and equipment ready for commercial scale production.
As part of the agreement, Woxna will send samples of spherical purified graphite to Forge Nano for coating, performance testing, and evaluation against other previously carbon coated Woxna spherical graphite materials.
If successful, the agreement outlines a path to purchase Forge Nano’s equipment with a capacity suited for deployment in a future demonstration plant at the Woxna graphite mine.
Filip Kozlowski, CEO of Leading Edge, states, “Coating is the last and most valuable step towards becoming a future active anode materials producer in Europe.”
“With the support of some significant European investors in the battery value chain, their technology could be the perfect solution to enable a sustainable source of high-performance active anode materials from Sweden,” concluded Kozlowski.
Paul Lichty, CEO of Forge Nano, commented, “With the global demand for energy storage solutions being at an all-time high, our partners worldwide are leading the way in advancing battery technology.”
The development has been directed towards producing and modifying high purity graphite using thermal purification technologies for emerging high-growth, high-value markets such as the lithium-ion battery industry.
The portfolio of projects includes the 100 per cent owned Woxna Graphite mine (Sweden), Norra Kärr HREE project (Sweden), and the 51 per cent owned Bihor Sud Nickel Cobalt exploration alliance (Romania).
Leading Edge Materials Corp. (LEM) is in the grey and is trading at C$0.33 at 11:44 am ET.
