Column: Trump 2.0 won’t reverse Biden’s critical minerals push
Donald Trump has described the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as a "green scam" and vowed to repeal it after he returns to the White House in January.
MGX Minerals and its partner, the University of British Columbia, has completed the first phase of work to create next-generation lithium-ion batteries capable of quadrupling energy density up to 400 Wh/kg from the current 100 Wh/kg.
The first phase of work involved a baseline assessment of metallurgical silicon from MGX’s three projects in southeast British Columbia.
The second phase of work, now underway, will focus on developing a scalable process to upgrade metallurgical silicon and turn it into silicon anodes. The use of silicon anodes – rather than graphite as is now customary – is responsible for higher energy density in the batteries. Better batteries could find uses in electric vehicles, grid storage, telecommunications, wireless sensors and more, says MGX.
The two-year MGX-UBC research program has an initial goal of creating a hybrid silicon-graphite anode that will not require industry retooling. The ultimate goal is to create the next generation of energy-dense lithium-ion batteries.
This article first appeared in Canadian Mining Journal.
