Altech Chemicals Limited, Subiaco, Australia, is deepening its involvement in the battery metals business, announcing a collaboration agreement with a leading silicon metal producer to develop a high capacity, long cycle life silicon battery anode material, Aumanufacturing.com.au reports.
At the same time Altech launched a $14.5 million partially underwritten pro-rata share entitlement offer. Major shareholders have taken up or underwritten $7.6 million of the offering.
Altech is completing a high purity alumina (HPA) plant in Malaysia, and has been invited to construct another plant in the German state of Saxony.
Feedstock will be sourced from the Company’s kaolin deposit at Meckering in Western Australia.
HPA is already used to coat lithium ion battery separators, and in the production of synthetic sapphire used to manufacture LEDs and semi-conductors.
The new collaboration – with a partner not identified by Altech – is designed to solve three problems of lithium-ion battery technologies.
These are expansion induced fragmentation, poor cyclability and the efficiency at which electrons are transferred in batteries – known as coulombic efficiency.
The two companies will analyse the potential of using Altech’s HPA and technology to coat silicon particles to be used to create the anode materials.