Altech Chemicals’ (ASX: ATC) chief scientist and general manager of operations Dr Jingyuan Liu has described results from phase one battery performance tests as “very encouraging” using the company’s high purity alumina proprietary coating technology.
The company’s proprietary technology involves providing a uniform HPA coating on battery anode grade graphite particles.
As part of the test work, batteries comprising the coated anodes underwent 100 cycles of cell charge and discharge and were compared to batteries with uncoated anodes.
Results were “positive” and “encouraging”, with HPA coated graphite anode batteries demonstrating improvements to battery life, capacity and chargeability.
The next step in evaluating the technology will include additional runs of battery charge and discharge.
“We now have to optimise the testing conditions and conduct additional tests to demonstrate repeatability and consistency,” Dr Liu explained.
“The performance of the alumina coated graphite is meeting our expectations so far,” he added.
HPA coating plant studies
This work is part of Altech’s strategy to build a HPA coating plant in Germany to provide anode grade coated materials for Europe’s rapidly growing lithium-ion battery industry.
The company revealed its 75% owned German subsidiary Altech Industries Germany GmgH (AIG) would start pre-feasibility work this month into the viability of constructing a plant using the technology at the Schwarze Pumpe Industrial Park in Saxony, Germany.
AIG has an option to acquire a 14 hectare site at the industrial park.
Late last year, Altech announced it had successfully demonstrated its coating technology had deposited a “uniform and consistent layer of alumina” (about 2 nanometres thick) onto anode grade graphite particles.
In comparison, current technologies result in thicker, irregular and inconsistent HPA coatings.
Altech managing director Iggy Tan said the company’s technology has the potential to “significantly impact lithium-ion battery performance” and address the problem of first cycle capacity loss.
The company is developing new product ranges Anode Grade APC01 and Anode Grade ALC01.
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