Renascor plans battery anode material joint venture

Australian graphite developer Renascor Resources has entered into an initial agreement with Sicona Battery Technologies to jointly develop battery anode material from Renascor's Siviour graphite project, which is being progressed in South Australia.

Renascor and Sydney-based Sicona will collaborate in the production of next-generation anode material using Renascor's expertise in the production of purified spherical graphite and Sicona's expertise in the development of silicon-based anodes.

Additional collaboration is expected to include pilot-scale production trials, which could lead to the production of commercial volumes of battery anode material. Sicona is developing silicon-composite anodes that combine silicon with graphite to improve capacity and cell density over current graphite-only battery anodes.

"The battery anode market offers outstanding potential as increasing electric vehicle take-up leads to greater demand for key raw materials such as spherical graphite," Renascor managing director David Christensen said.

A binding agreement is expected to be signed between the two companies in early 2020, with first-phase testing to begin soon afterwards.

The South Australian department for energy and mining recently gave approve for a 60t bulk sample of graphite to be mined from Renascor's Siviour project for use in pilot plant production in China.

By Angus Macmillan