Altech Chemicals Limited (ASX: ATC) and its 75% owned subsidiary, Altech Industries Germany GmbH (AIG) have attended the official opening of an office and research and development (R&D) workshop at the DOCK3 Industrial Development Centre (DOCK3 IDC), Schwarze Pumpe Industrial Park, Saxony Germany.
The official opening was conducted by Roland Peine, managing director of ASG Spremberg GmbH (a services business that promotes and facilitates new businesses for DOCK3 IDC), in the presence of the head state district officer Michael Harig.
Also present were the mayor of Spreetal Mr Manfred Peine and the mayoress of Spremberg Ms Christine Herntier from the states Saxony and Brandenburg respectively, together with many other high level state government and industry representatives, and senior management from the Fraunhofer Institute IKTS.
In May 2021, AIG secured via a three-year lease, office space including two bays within a 12 bay workshop/ warehouse complex at DOCK3 IDC, where it intends to establish an advanced battery materials research and development facility with a focus on the coating of nano coated anode materials. The DOCK3 IDC is located immediately next to a ~14 hectare site at Schwarze Pumpe that AIG has an option to acquire.
At the official opening ceremony, Uwe Ahrens managing director of AIG briefed Saxony State Government officials on the progress of the current preliminary feasibility study (PFS) of a battery materials HPA coating plant at Schwarze Pumpe. The PFS is advancing quickly and has assumed a phase 1 coating plant designed with a capacity to coat 10,000tpa (35tpd) of anode grade graphite.
Saxony State Government officials welcomed AIG’s vision of using Altech’s alumina coating technology to produce battery material composites aimed to be used by the lithium-ion battery manufacturing industry.
Saxony is the state which hosts production sites for Volkswagen, BMW, Porsche and Daimler, and the region is a leading engineering training ground and has excellent research facilities like the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramics Technologies and Systems IKTS, a world leading institute in the science of battery materials.
The Schwarze Pumpe Industrial Park is well serviced by existing infrastructure including reticulated electricity and natural gas, rail and roads, and is only 120 km from Berlin and 78 km from Dresden.
AIG’s proposed research and development centre aims to further refine the effectiveness of Altech’s battery materials alumina coating technology and would ultimately seek to produce material for leading end users in Europe to test in their products. The ultimate aim of AIG is to fast-track full scale commercialisation of Altech’s battery materials coating technology in Germany.