BHP first-quarter iron ore production tops estimates, copper output rises
The global miner completed the debottlenecking work at the port at its Western Australia operations, boosting iron ore output.
Atlas Materials, which has developed a waste-free technology to process low-grade nickel for use in electric vehicle batteries, has signed of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with 6K Energy producer of Li-ion battery materials, to jointly explore processing and refining opportunities to support an integrated North American electric vehicle (EV) battery supply chain.
US-based Atlas last year raised $27 million for its nickel technology and said it aims to launch production at sites in Canada or the US by 2027 at commercial scale.
Atlas’ new technology uses hydrochloric acid and caustic soda to leach the ore but, unlike some other methods, does not need high pressure or high temperatures and does not result in waste products or other emissions while increasing the amount of ore available for batteries by 50%, the company said.
Until now, saprolite ores, which account for approximately one third of the world’s nickel resources, could not be processed into battery grade applications economically, which is what the Atlas process is targeting.
6K’s UniMelt production system delivers multiple IRA compliant Li-ion materials, including nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) and lithium ferrophosphate (LFP) battery cathode active materials (CAM), with strong specification performance meeting or exceeding industry requirements, the company said, adding that its LFP CAM is achieving over 160mh/gm capacity with exceptional efficiency, trending to >6000 cycles while maintaining 80% capacity while 6K’s single-crystal NMC811 is demonstrating performance trending to >3000 cycles to 80% state of health.
6K delivers both NMC and LFP at a significantly lower cost than Chinese suppliers – backed by lower energy consumption and as much as 65% lower carbon footprint, it said.
Atlas will continue to focus on the North American production by deploying its low carbon process to produce mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP) from its established access to nickel laterite sources. 6K will focus on converting nickel salts to CAM with its propriety microwave-generated plasma in a closed-loop production process.
The joint work will provide the lowest carbon footprint impact in conjunction with a market leading solution for EVs and the automotive industry as a whole, the companies said.
Comments