Volt Resources Ltd (ASX:VRC) has entered into a joint development agreement with battery cell developer 24M Technologies, Inc., focused on coated spheronised purified graphite (CSPG) and non-spherical graphite products to enhance lithium-ion battery (LIB) performance.
The company's technology partner in the United States, American Energy Technologies Co (AETC), will play a key role in ongoing test-work.
All going well, the companies will enter into a binding offtake agreement that will leverage AETC’s inverted LIB anode materials flowsheet design to produce graphite products sourced from Volt’s 70% owned Zavalievsky Graphite business in Europe and future supply from its Bunyu Graphite Project in Tanzania.
The test-work is progressing to support 24M’s commercialisation activities that utilise its SemiSolidTM lithium-ion battery technology in multiple markets including electric vehicles, stationary storage and electric aviation.
"Strong value proposition"
“Volt is excited about the progress with technology and market leaders such as 24M and American Energy Technologies Co,” Volt managing director Trevor Matthews said.
“This JDA reinforces our strategy of focusing on applications and customers where we have a strong value proposition.
"We are looking forward to continuing our battery anode material qualification work with 24M and its licensees.”
Expanding applications
AETC is also looking forward to the test-work and results that may come.
“American Energy Technologies Co is excited about the encouraging performance of Volt Resources’ ZG spheroidised natural flake graphite specific to its intended application in the 24M’s SemiSolidTM lithium-ion battery technology,” AETC’s president & CEO Dr Maya L Barsukov said.
“AETC is, among other things, a provider of technology to Volt Resources, and a manufacturer of products which may use ZG graphite as part of a formulation, a toll processor of graphite materials and the owner of AETC Background Technology including all Proprietary Rights thereto.
“With this partnership, we enthusiastically look forward to expanding the range of application for our technology beyond the electric vehicle and specialty batteries space where we are presently active, into a fast emerging market of industrial graphite and carbon products for powering green utility storage systems, such as power sources for solar farms and wind utilities.”
Why 24M?
24M’s SemiSolidTM manufacturing platform is designed to transform the cell product and process and solve ongoing energy storage issues.
By upending the design of and the process to manufacture lithium-ion battery cells, 24M aims to solve the critical challenges associated with the world’s preferred form of energy storage: reducing costs while improving performance.
Importantly for VRC, 24M has a renowned customer base including license agreements with Kyocera Corporation, FREYR AS, Lucas TVS Ltd, Volkswagen (ETR:VOWG_p) Group (XETRA:VOW) and Fujifilm Corporation.
24M president & CEO Naoki Ota said of the agreement: “24M is pleased to enter into a Joint Development Agreement with Volt Resources and American Energy Technologies Company to develop graphite materials specifically targeting cost and performance optimized for the SemiSolidTM manufacturing platform.
“We believe that by combining our efforts with industry leaders like Volt and American Energy Technologies Company, we will be able to improve the performance of our cells while lowering their cost.”