South Australia leads race to be country’s ‘Home of Graphite’
COMMODITY CAPERS: The South Australia Department of State Development (DoSD) has released a fairly bullish outlook on the potential of the state’s graphite sector.
The DoSD’s fondness for graphite mining is being driven by, what it perceives to be, a global growth in demand for the commodity.
It cites declarations by the US State Department, British Geological Survey and the European Commission of graphite as a Critical Raw Material with it expected to continue to be used in a raft of industries, including steel refractories, battery manufacture and lubricants.
Around the world there have been announcements by car manufacturers committing to the development of electric vehicles.
“The demand for graphite – a key material in the lithium-ion batteries that power them – is also increasing,” The DoSD said.
“As each battery produced requires 10 to 15 times more flake graphite than lithium, the production of electric vehicles creates an ideal opportunity for producers of high quality, coarse-flake graphite.”
It is in the flake graphite department South Australia considers to be a potential mover and shaker, particularly in the Eyre Peninsula where recent discoveries have demonstrated potential for large and jumbo-sized flake graphite.
Its confidence is understandable, given around 60 per cent of Australia’s economic demonstrated graphite Resources are located within its state borders, boasting some 1.47 million tonnes of contained graphite.
“Due to South Australia’s highly prospective there are substantial opportunities to discover further deposits,” the DoSD declared.
The Eyre Peninsula is the home address of Australia’s only operating graphite mine, which is one of six graphite projects and prospects being worked up by four companies: Archer Exploration (ASX: AXE), Lincoln Minerals (ASX: LML), Oakdale Resources (ASX: OAR), and Valence Industries (ASX: VXL).
Source: South Australia Department of State Development
Three of these companies have formed research and development partnerships with the University of Adelaide, focused on the production of graphene from graphite sourced from the Eyre Peninsula projects.
Graphene is what graphite aspires to be when it grows up.
“A single layer of carbon packed in a two-dimensional hexagon lattice, it is the first 2D organic crystal with unique electronic, optical, mechanical, and thermal properties,” the DoSD explained.
Graphene possesses many of qualities, the major ones being its strength – 200 times stronger than steel, its conductivity – 100 times better than copper, and its ability to improve the current density of capacitors and lithium-ion batteries.
Archer Resources has teamed with the University’s School of Chemical Engineering for a two-year, $200,000 research program looking at the development of scalable production of graphene from its graphite deposits.
Lincoln Minerals also has a working relationship with the Chemical Engineers at the University, which has resulted in the production of graphene and graphene products from the company’s Koppio mine.
Valence Industries inked a Joint Research, Development & Commercialisation Agreement with the University in 2014 covering the development and commercialisation of all new graphene research and for the development of a new Australian Graphene Research Centre – to be based in South Australia.
Valence has allocated $800,000 over 3.5 years to the research program.