King River Resources’ newly commissioned laboratory scale pilot plant is off to a flying start after it delivered an ultra-high purity aluminium precursor compound for application in the lucrative lithium-ion battery industry. The company says an inaugural run of the plant using its proprietary “ARC” processing technology delivered a 99.9995 per cent purity “Type 1” precursor product.
The test work falls under King River’s recently launched definitive feasibility study, or “DFS” that aims to leverage the company’s proprietary ARC technology to produce high value aluminium Type 1 precursor products for use in the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries.
The company has engaged specialist scientific technology company, Source Certain International to conduct its testing and commission the new pilot plant.
A maiden run of plant using King River’s ARC process, referred to as “Campaign 1”, churned out the 99.9995 per cent pure precursor aluminium salt from an industrial chemical compound feedstock.
Management says the “excellent” result was confirmed through four duplicate analyses to generate an average purity value and improve confidence in the outcome.
Results from a now completed follow-up Campaign 2 are pending.
Campaign 3, a third run of the plant incorporating refinements and feedback to the processing steps used in Campaign 1 and Campaign 2, has now commenced.
King River is also attempting to determine if its technology can be applied to produce precursor cathode active materials, or “P-CAMs” - an intermediate mixed metal hydroxide used in the manufacture of lithium-ion battery cathodes.
The company is targeting P-CAMs with nickel-cobalt-aluminium and nickel-cobalt-manganese-aluminium compositions which it believes could have a big future in the lithium-ion battery sphere.
P-CAMs are made by a co-precipitation process where nickel, cobalt, manganese and aluminium salts are precipitated as a mixed metal hydroxide of specific composition, morphology and particle size distribution, according to King River.
It says Source Certain’s test work investigating the production of P-CAMs continues to gather steam.
Recently produced samples of nickel-cobalt-aluminium based P-CAMs have now been submitted for sizing analysis and scanning electron microscope imagery with the goal of assessing grain size distribution of the product.
King River also aspires to develop other high purity aluminium-based precursor products using its Type 1 precursor salt.
Source Certain is continuing test work on the company’s Type 2 precursor - an aluminium compound used in the manufacture of lithium-ion battery cathodes and high purity alumina.
A recent breakthrough saw Source Certain develop a first version of the Type 2 precursor with current optimisation works now seeking to lift its purity to more than 99.999 per cent.
The company also aims to generate Type 3 and Type 4 precursors for use in the manufacture of lithium-ion battery cathodes and for coating of lithium-ion battery electrodes. The products could also be applied to LED phosphors and in the electronics and optics industries.
The lithium-ion battery industry continues to flourish on the back of a boom in electrical vehicle uptake around the world and King River could find itself right in the thick of things if it continues to churn out high purity aluminium products critical in the manufacture of battery components.
There are few market commentators out there now that don’t believe lithium batteries and electric vehicles are here to stay and King River is one of a small clique of forward thinking companies that is getting ahead of the curve – just how big the curve will be is anyone’s guess but there are not many people around that think it will be flat anymore – that much seems certain.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
