BATCircle

In 2021, Grafintec was granted EUR 791,000 funding by Business Finland as part of the BATCircle (Finland-based Circular Ecosystem of Battery Metals) consortium led by Aalto University. The funding has been used to develop a sustainable technological solution, utilizing renewable energy, to spheronise and purify graphite within a Finnish industrial ecosystem, for use in the manufacture of lithium-ion battery anodes.

The vision of BATCircle 2.0 programme has been to develop and to optimize highly technical production processes (spheronisation and thermal cleaning) for natural and alternative graphite resources. These include for example the conversion of recycled graphite to high-quality anode material for lithium-ion batteries. New, environmentally friendly and cost-effective conversion processes of graphite materials into high-quality anode materials for lithium-ion batteries without the use of hazardous chemicals (e.g. hydrofluoric acid) has been tested and optimized in the programme. The aim of process optimization is to produce even- and high-quality materials that fulfil the criteria required in electric vehicle applications.

In 2024, Grafintec was granted EUR 232,000 funding by Business Finland (see announcement 26 Nov 2024). The grant funding of €232,000 is equivalent to 50 per cent of the 3-year €464,000 budget for Grafintec’s ‘Management and Valorisation of Waste Streams in the Coated Spherical Graphite Production Process’ project.

The proposed work undertaken by Grafintec is part of the BATCircle3.0 consortium, with funding of €13.4 million for the next three years, and is a key project in Business Finland’s Hydrogen & Batteries – Dual Helix of Decarbonisation programme. This BATCircle3.0 funding follows the grant received by Grafintec of €530,000 under the BATCircle2.0 programme which was completed in October (see announcement 31 Oct 2024. See also closing words from Aalto.

The aim of the project is to:

• Investigate opportunities for utilisation and valorisation of wastewater and other waste streams from the Graphite Anode Materials Plant (“GAMP”) production process;
• Carry out a Life Cycle Analysis (“LCA”) & Technical and Economic Analysis (“TEA”) of the process; and
• Investigate the viability of the process.

This project is a continuation of the BATCircle2.0 ‘Spheronisation and Purification of Natural Graphite for the European Lithium-Ion Battery Market’ project. While the main focus of BATCircle2.0 was on developing a sustainable spheronisation and purification technology, this project aims to advance our understanding of the waste streams identified in the process and how we can reduce these waste streams to minimise the environmental impact, valorise them to reduce operational expenditure as well as increasing the revenue of the project from valorising waste streams.

The work undertaken in BATCircle2.0 already demonstrated that reagents such as sodium hydroxide can be effectively recovered from the wastewater and recycled back into the process to produce battery-grade graphite (>99.95 per cent purity). The previous work also demonstrated that calcium carbonate, which is needed for the neutralisation of the acidic wastewater stream, was produced in the process, thereby reducing the need for fresh calcium carbonate. The BATCircle3.0 project aims to optimise the waste management processes demonstrated and developed in BATCircle2.0 to further improve the robustness of the business model towards a zero-waste industrial plant.

BATTRACE

The objective of the BATTRACE research programme has been to research the traceability of battery materials (origin of metals) and sustainable production of battery materials. The target of the European Green Deal programme is to produce batteries conforming to safe and sustainable principles to meet increasing demand.

The project involves several industry partners who, in addition to research partners and Business Finland, act as project financiers. The industry partners in this EUR 5.8 million project include Finnish Minerals Group, Finnish Battery Chemicals, Keliber Technology, Outotec, Valmet Automation, Latitude 66 Cobalt, Grafintec, Mawson and FinnCobalt.

Bioboost

The ambition of the Bioboost project is to revolutionize the use of kraft lignin, a by-product of the wood pulping process, by developing innovative and sustainable applications for polymers and energy storage.

The Bioboost project is a collaborative effort led by VTT, with contributions from nine companies, including Stora Enso, Valmet, Teknikum, Nokian Tyres, Koskisen, BASF, Grafintec, Premix, and Carbofex. The project brings together the whole value chain from lignin technology providers to current and future application owners.