MATERIALS
Biographite is made from forestry by-products such as wood chips
mined materials crossing the globe for source, through processing to battery assembly, to reach end consumers. New Zealand-based battery
material innovator CarbonScape is working to address these issues with the development of Biographite – a carbon-negative alternative to graphite – to enable cleaner lithium-ion batteries for EVs and grid-scale energy storage. Bolstered by a new $18 million investment round, the company is now in the process of commercialising the innovative material to deliver a cleaner, competitive and more secure raw material to the global market. “CarbonScape’s Biographite enables
the establishment of localised battery supply chains from the ground up,” says Ivan Williams, the company’s CEO. “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.”
BIOGRAPHITE BOOM
THE
How the commercialisation of a carbon- negative alternative to graphite is set to address raw material scarcity for EV and grid-scale batteries
G
raphite is a critical material for lithium-ion batteries that power the electric vehicles (EVs) of today, typically
making up to 50% of a battery’s weight. However, expected global demand currently far outstrips supply, with a forecast deficit of 777,000 tonnes per annum predicted by 2023 according to Reuters. With countries increasingly competing for raw materials, securing supplies of graphite is key to
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accelerating the production of EVs and renewable energy systems. Over half of global demand for
graphite currently comes from the battery sector, but there is a downfall: graphite production is one of the largest CO2 emitters in the battery raw materials supply chain and represents a significant proportion of the cost of a battery. Adding to the problem, today’s battery supply chains are long and complex, with petroleum-based and
HOW IS IT PRODUCED? Biographite has been developed to fulfil demand for a sustainably produced critical raw material for EV battery supply chains, which currently depend on costly and high-emission production processes. “We discovered how to make our
carbon-negative alternative to graphite while working on a solution to another problem: we were using microwave technology to produce green coke, to decarbonise steel production,” explains Williams. “As the grave implications of the impending global shortage of graphite for lithium-ion batteries became clear to us, we pivoted towards producing a sustainable alternative to this critical material instead.” CarbonScape’s patented process
is the result of seven years of development and testing, and uses timber and forestry industry by- products, such as wood chips, to provide a sustainable alternative to synthetic petroleum-based graphite and natural mined graphite. These by-products are then used to produce Biographite through a cleaner, faster process known as thermos-catalytic graphitisation.
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