Battery anode materials hopeful EcoGraf (ASX:EGR) has achieved what is referred to as ‘four nines’ or 4N purity, resulting in 99.99% carbon.
The company has now produced the high purity battery anode materials for lithium ion and electric vehicle manufacturers, which it says exceeds customer expectations.
The standard customer industry requirement is 99.95% for natural spherical graphite, which is also referred to as battery-grade graphite.
But via EcoGraf’s HFfree proprietary purification technology, the natural spherical graphite increased to 99.99% carbon.
Prior to the use of the technology, the initial grade of the unpurified natural spherical graphite was 96.73% carbon.
EcoGraf says the notable reduction in impurities has been achieved through additional process improvements, which also delivered reduced capital and operating costs.
China is currently the only producer of commercial quantities of battery grade spherical graphite, but uses hydrofluoric (HF) acid to achieve 99.95% carbon grade which is very toxic.
The results will be incorporated in the independent engineering study on benchmarking the EcoGraf HFfree proprietary process against the known purification processes, which is expected to be completed shortly.
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
Images: EcoGraf
