Tesla Motors is on the cusp of unveiling its Model 3, an affordable mid-size sedan that is the key to the company’s goal of producing 500,000 all-electric vehicles per year by 2017 – welcome news for those who want to own a Tesla but can’t afford the two more luxurious models released by the company.
A half-million Teslas rolling off of assembly-lines each year also could be good news for Graphite One Resources Inc., a junior mining company aspiring to supply some of the roughly 27,000 metric tons of coated spherical graphite needed in the batteries of these electric autos.
“With the United States presently 100 percent import-dependent for all of its (natural) graphite, reliable access to high-purity product will be a key factor in the United States’ ability to build sustainable industries in clean-tech and other high-tech applications,” said Graphite One President and CEO Anthony Huston.
To this end, Graphite One is focusing its efforts on demonstrating that the spherical graphite needed to store power in lithium-ion batteries can be produced from material mined at the enormous deposit identified at its Graphite Creek property in western Alaska.
“With America’s largest natural flake deposit, and the advanced processing capabilities we are now working towards validating, Graphite One is systematically developing critical components of a North American clean-energy supply chain,” added Huston.
Spherical graphite
Graphite One is in the midst of a five-phase program designed to prove that graphite mined from its huge deposit north of Nome can be transformed into a high-quality anode material for the lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles and the growing myriad of other devices being powered by these mobile electric storage cells.
Carbon-coated spherical graphite is the finished product used in lithium-ion batteries. The spherical shape allows the graphite to be more efficiently packed into battery cells, while the coating extends the graphite’s lifetime capacity.
Graphite One has teamed up with Tru Group Inc. – a technology metals consultant with expertise along the entire graphite-graphene supply chain – to complete a five-phase program designed to produce this specialized battery component from Graphite Creek material.
In 2015, Tru had identified characteristics of the Graphite Creek deposit that may make the material a good fit for many of the high-tech and green energy sectors that are driving a large part of the growing market for graphite.
As identified by TRU, these distinguishing features can be described as spheroidal, thin, aggregate and expanded. The consultant postulated that these distinctive characteristics could lend to different specialized applications with minimal processing.
These unique and naturally occurring properties have prompted Graphite One to apply for the trademark, STAX, to describe Graphite Creek graphite.
“From the time we identified the unique mineralization of our STAX graphite, we’ve observed a number of potential performance advantages,” said Huston.
Following up on its initial theories, Tru has tested various means of milling and purifying Graphite Creek STAX material, all of which resulted in creating graphite purities above the 99.95 percent requirement for battery quality graphite.
“Now, with the first three phases of our product development program complete, we have been able to validate the assumptions we made in terms of the purity we could achieve,” the Graphite One CEO added.
Tru is now working on producing carbon-coated spherical graphite from the purified STAX. These potato-shaped spheres will be used to manufacture coin cells, where the final electrochemistry of the Graphite Creek anode material will be tested.
Ultimately, Graphite One wants to have samples of carbon-coated spherical graphite made from its Alaska deposit that could be evaluated by potential end users.
Driving graphite demand
While Graphite One has not evoked the name Tesla Motors as a potential end user of its STAX graphite, the growing electric car manufacturer is driving the demand for lithium-ion batteries and all of the ingredients needed to make them.
To achieve its goal of manufacturing 500,000 electric vehicles per year, Tesla is erecting a 10-million-square-foot plant in Nevada to produce the batteries that will power the cars and crossover SUVs.
“The Gigafactory is an important step in advancing the cause of sustainable transportation and will enable the mass production of compelling electric vehicles for decades to come,” said Tesla Motors Chairman and CEO Elon Musk.
While not scheduled to be fully operational until 2020, the gigafactory is on pace to produce its first battery cells before the highly anticipated Model 3 goes into production.
The United States Geological Survey estimates that once in full production the Gigafactory will “require 93,000 tons of flake graphite for use as anode material.” This compares to a total of 54,400 tons of graphite consumption in the United States during 2015, according to the USGS Mineral Commodities Summaries 2016.
All of the natural graphite used in the United States last year was imported, with 97 percent coming from China, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, and Madagascar.
The USGS noted Graphite One’s Graphite Creek project and Alabama Graphite’s Coosa project as potential domestic sources of this anode ingredient of increasing importance.
Located about 37 miles north of Nome, the Graphite Creek deposit boasts 17.95 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 6.3 percent (1.13 million metric tons) graphite; and 154.36 million metric tons of inferred resources averaging 5.7 percent (8.76 million metric tons) graphite.
Whether or not Graphite One sells directly to the gigafactory, the massive graphite need of the one facility adds to the overall demand for products from world-class deposit of carboniferous materials like the one at Graphite Creek.
“As the green technology economy grows, driving continued adoption of electric vehicles and smart grid power storage devices, graphite will increasingly be a key material – a factor already present in rising demand projections,” said Huston.
Once the product development and mineral processing test work is complete, Graphite One plans to finalize a preliminary economic assessment for the Graphite Creek project.
