Manufactured from forestry and timber by-products such as wood chips, biographite can be used in place of regular graphite, which is usually mined or produced from petroleum. Graphite can account for up to 50 per cent of the weight of a lithium-ion battery and more than half of global demand for the material comes from the battery sector.
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Current graphite demand already outstrips supply and there is forecasted to be an annual deficit of 777,000 tonnes by 2030. According to CarbonScape, the ability to produce biographite locally from waste material will be a major boost for the sustainability and security of EV supply chains.
“CarbonScape’s biographite enables the establishment of localised battery supply chains from the ground up,” said Ivan Williams, CEO of CarbonScape. “If we are to truly move away from fossil carbon and power our economies through mass electrification, we urgently need sustainable alternatives like biographite to scale quickly.
“This investment represents a strong statement of support for sustainable sourcing of battery materials for global decarbonisation. With these partnerships, CarbonScape is another step closer to bringing biographite to market on a commercial scale.”
CarbonScape says its patented process is the result of seven years of development and testing. The technology uses thermo-catalysis to transform the amorphous carbon in biomass into battery-grade biographite. It’s claimed the process produces specifically tailored biographite anode material, doing so at a fraction of the time and cost associated with traditional synthetic graphite processes.
The company says the finished product has a carbon-negative footprint, saving up to 30 tonnes of CO2 emissions per tonne of material compared to synthetic or mined graphite. CarbonScape claims biographite will enable battery manufacturers to cut the carbon footprint of each battery by almost a third, potentially reducing sector emissions by more than 86 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030.
The NZ firm says it will use the $18m investment to scale its business and advance its plans for production facilities in Europe and the US. Funding was led by Finnish paper and packaging giant Stora Enso and China’s ATL, a large-scale lithium-ion battery manufacturer.
“Partnering with CarbonScape marks another step on our journey to serve the fast-growing battery market with sustainable, local materials made from trees,” Juuso Konttinen, senior vice president, Biomaterials Growth Businesses at Stora Enso.
“With this partnership, we are exploring a sustainable alternative for critical battery materials, creating a positive impact on society.”
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