Altech Chemicals Limited’s (ASX: ATC) 75% owned German subsidiary, Altech Industries Germany GmbH (AIG), is to commence a pre-feasibility study (PFS) on the construction of a battery materials high purity alumina (HPA) coating plant in Saxony, Germany.
This follows the company’s strategy to focus on tailoring its high purity alumina into specialised products targeted at more efficient applications within the lithium-ion battery industry.
The AIG study will assess the commercial viability of constructing a battery materials coating plant at the Schwarze Pumpe Industrial Park in Saxony where AIG has an option to acquire a ~14Ha site.
The coating plant would use Altech’s alumina coating technology to coat anode grade materials with HPA, which would be supplied to the rapidly growing European lithium-ion battery industry.
It is contemplated that the coating plant’s HPA feedstock requirement would eventually be satisfied from Altech’s proposed Malaysian HPA plant. The pre-feasibility work is set to commence in March 2021, and will be jointly funded by the AIG shareholders – Altech 75% and Altech Advanced Materials AG 25%.
In late 2020, Altech announced the successful demonstration of its alumina coating technology to coat graphite particles typical of those used in anode applications within lithium-ion batteries (anode grade graphite), with a nano layer of high purity alumina (HPA).
The demonstration showed that Altech’s technology was able to deposit a uniform and consistent layer of alumina (approximately 2nm thick) onto anode grade graphite particles. The uniformity and consistency of an alumina layer on anode grade graphite is expected to be important to improve lithium-ion battery performance.
Following the completion of the demonstration, Altech proceeded to produce a sufficient quantity of coated graphite to proceed to a first stage of battery test-work.
In late January 2021, the company commenced the performance testing of batteries containing the alumina coated graphite particles
HPA is commonly applied as a coating on the separator sheets used within a lithium-ion battery, as alumina coated separators improve battery performance, durability and overall safety. However, there is an evolving use for alumina within the anode component of the lithium-ion battery because of the positive impacts that alumina coated graphite particles have on battery life and performance.
Lithium-ion battery anodes are typically composed of graphite. In a lithium-ion battery, lithium ion losses initially present as inactive layers that form during the very first battery charge cycle, the losses then compound with each subsequent battery usage cycle. Typically around 8% of lithium ions are lost during the very first battery charge cycle. This “first cycle capacity loss” or “first-cycle irreversibility” is a long recognised but as yet poorly resolved limitation that has plagued rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.