ADVANCED battery materials development company Australian Mines Limited (ASX: AUZ) has commenced production runs at its Perth demonstration plant to supply battery grade nickel sulphate and cobalt sulphate crystals to potential offtake partners.
Nickel sulphate and cobalt sulphate are critical materials for the production of lithium ion batteries, with the 2019 Deloitte Battery Electric Vehicles report predicting 21m electric vehicles on the road globally by 2030.
Australian Mines’ focus is to secure binding offtake agreements and financing for its fully-owned Sconi cobalt-nickel-scandium project in North Queensland.
Australian Mines managing director Benjamin Bell said Sconi was expected to be a low-cost, ethical source of high-grade technology metals at a time of huge demand for these commodities, driven by rapid growth in the electric vehicle and energy storage industries.
“It is encouraging to have potential offtake partners assessing Sconi’s ability to consistently deliver battery grade materials and to have another potential customer testing the purity of our scandium oxide,” he said.
The Australian and USA Governments and the European Union recently classified scandium as a “critical commodity”, driving significant additional interest in the Sconi project as a source of high purity scandium oxide.
The Perth demonstration plant is expected to be operational for up to six months to deliver samples for independent testing to verify the company’s ability to consistently produce high quality battery materials.
The supply of samples from the Australian Mines’ demonstration plant will be on a non-commercial basis.
