balihi
8 years ago
Elcora plans $5M Halifax plant
Elcora plans $5M Halifax plant aimed at electric car market---Bedford company says facility could be up and running in the next six months. A Bedford-based company is planning to open a $5-million manufacturing facility in Halifax within the next six months in its bid to grab a chunk of the electric car market. Itll be a pilot facility, Troy Grant, president and chief executive officer of Elcora Advanced Materials, said in an interview Thursday. Were looking at initially setting up a plant that will produce 2,000 tonnes of anode paste per year, said Grant. Later, we want to do a 20,000-tonne-a-year facility. The company snagged a $500,000 loan from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency in July to finance its Graphene Research and Development Centre and is now looking for financing for its proposed anode paste facility. Anode paste typically sells for $10,000 to $20,000 per tonne and Elcora Advanced Materials company is planning to come onto the market at somewhere between $12,500 to $15,000 per tonne. Those numbers would mean revenues of $27 million annually for the proposed anode paste facility which is to be in operation by the first quarter of 2017. It is expected to employ roughly 25 people, mostly engineers and lab technicians. Elcora Advanced Materials has already bought some of the needed equipment and is accepting resumes. Anode paste made with carbon and is used in the manufacture of rechargeable lithium ion batteries and the world market for the material is currently about 250,000 tonnes per year, said Grant. Elcora Advanced Materials foray into the anode paste market is part of its long-term strategic plan to be a vertically-integrated graphite and graphene company that mines its own graphite, conducts research and development, processes the raw material, and sells both it and products made from it. Graphene, which Elcora Advanced Materials is planning to put into production through its wholly-owned Graphene Corp. subsidiary, is one of those products. The company already makes it in small quantities in its Bedford research facility. In a nutshell, graphene is a futuristic material that consists of sheets of carbon rings that are no more than 10 atoms thick, or about one-tenth the size of a small virus. These super-thin sheets of carbon atoms are also super-strong, harder than diamond, and one of the best conductors of electricity ever discovered. The material has been described as something that can be used in a wide range of products, from bulletproof vests to water purifiers. Elcora is still only in the research and development stage of its graphene production since it needs to find a way to boost its yields. But the companys mining operations in Sri Lanka are in full swing and the Elcora Advanced Materials hit a milestone this week with its first shipment of graphite from the Ragedara mine in which it has a 40 per cent interest through its minority ownership in Sakura Graphite (PVT) Ltd. That Sri Lankan company also pays Elcora a 30 per cent management fee in exchange for the Nova Scotia companys investment which covers capital costs, including the processing plant. To date, weve invested up to $4 million (in Sakura and the Sri Lankan mine), said Grant. Although the Elcora Advanced Materials president would not divulge the size of the first shipment of graphite, which was handled by the companys marketing and distribution partner Thyssenkrupp Metallurgical Products, he did say Sakura is expected to ship 5,000 tonnes of graphite this year at prices which will range from $1,500 to $2,500 per tonne. Based on those figures, Sakuras Regedara mine in Sri Lanka could be expected to ship out $10 millions worth of graphite in the coming year and ramp up to $36 millions worth of graphite by 2019. Were looking to get to 18,000 tonnes a year in two to three years, said Grant. Its a vein-type developmentwith a 30-year mine life. That production of graphite from Sri Lanka is expected to provide the raw material for Elcora Advanced Materials proposed anode paste facility in Halifax and its graphene production facility yet to be developed. Elcora Advanced Materials stock, which trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the ticker ERA and in Germany under the ELM symbol, closed on Thursday at 34 cents on heavier-than-average trading. The stock, which soared to 73 cents in late February after the company inked a marketing and distribution deal with ThyssenKrupp Metallurgical Products, one of the worlds leading commodity trading companies, has since gradually fallen back to roughly its former value. Elcora Advanced Materials has a market capitalization of $24.6 million. The company employs seven people in Bedford and, through its investment in the Sakura mining operation, another roughly 60 people in Sri Lanka. http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/1403635-elcora-plans-5m-halifax-plant-aimed-at-electric-car-market
GoldnBoy
8 years ago
Elcora produces the highest quality graphene, derived from graphite in the world, verified by independent 3rd party
http://www.playstocks.net/index.php/play-home-articles/graphite-graphene
Elcora's graphene was independently tested at the Centre for Advanced 2-D Materials (previously known as Graphene Research Centre) at the National University of Singapore and Elcora graphene is currently ranked No. 1 in the world by CA2DM in terms of quality due to the low
number of layer, structural quality, crystallite size, carbon content and morphology.
These results were presented by Prof. Antonio H. Castro Neto, director of CA2DM, at the Graphene Canada 2015 international conference in Montreal.
On January 11th, Elcora released the results of its graphene quality tests performed by the Centre for
Advanced Materials (CA2DM, previously known as Graphene Research Centre), at the National
University of Singapore. More than 20 well-known commercial graphene producers from North
America and Europe were tested, as well as many less-known Asian suppliers. The test results
indicate that the Elcora graphene is the top quality tested not only based on the overall evaluation but
also all of the individual criteria: Elcora's sample has the highest content of graphene flakes
with the best structural quality as measured by stringent scientific criteria.
• Among all the global graphene producers tested, Elcora graphene was found to have 55% of
graphene content (the highest measured)
• Flakes averaged three layers (90% of the sample with less than 30 layers)
• Flake sizes are consistent with an average of one micrometre (90% with less than 3
micrometers),
• High structural quality and more than 93 per cent in carbon content.
balihi
9 years ago
Elcora – fully committed to battery production, nuclear grade graphite and “true graphene”
Posted on January 18, 2016 by Jack Lifton
Elcora: Advancing Down the Supply Chain with High Efficiency and at Low Cost.
graphene
Clarity is rapidly coming to the natural graphite supply world. First let’s define some terms: A mine is a deposit that is being worked to produce a product suitable for sale. A deposit is a development project, which, if successful, will or could become a “mine”- Products must be sold not just produced for even a working mine to be a going concern, i.e., one with a positive cash flow. Elcora Resources Corp. (TSXV:ERA | OTCQB:ECORF) is rapidly moving to position itself as a vertically integrated supplier of industrial graphite; nuclear graphite; and what I am calling “true graphene.” In fact Elcora’s subsidiary, Graphene Corp. will be, as the company’s external advisor on science and technology assures us, the world’s first provider of “true graphene.”
The company’s core property, a high grade graphite deposit, previously in production under a prior ownership, in Sri Lanka,has now been brought back into production under the supervision of Elcora’s CTO, Prof Ian Flint (Phd) as an operating mine and mill capable of an initial output of 2500 tons of 99% C graphite per annum. It is being ramped up to a targeted production of over 10,000/tonnes per annum.
Elcora’s Sri Lankan graphite is among the highest grade (therefore least contaminated) being mined today anywhere. It is therefore ideally suited to be economically and efficiently processed into both (lithium ion) battery grade and nuclear grade graphite. In addition, and by no means of less importance, when I visited the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials, CA2DM (previously known as Graphene Research Centre) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) on November 11 of last year the director, Prof Antonio H. Castro Neto, told me that Elcora’s Sri Lankan graphite had the highest conversion rate to “true’ graphene that CA2DM had ever seen. It cannot be overemphasized that Elcora’s core competency is in world-class process engineering, so that its basket of state-of-the-art graphite and graphene products can be made from a wide variety of natural graphite deposits. The company is therefore actively and currently reviewing the global junior graphite space for additional raw material supply opportunities.
The CA2DM laboratory was the most comprehensive university laboratory I have ever seen. Professor Neto told me that it has attracted funding in the order of hundreds of millions of dollars from the funding agencies in Singapore and its annual budget is in the tens of millions of dollars per year with its basic funding from the university and the government augmented by funding from Global1000 companies worldwide. The only comparable facility in the world for the study of graphene is located in Manchester, UK, the National Graphene Institute (NGI) that has been funded by the UK government in hundreds of millions of pounds, and one of the winners of the Nobel Physics Prize for Graphene in 2010, Sir Andre Geim, who is associated with the Manchester institute routinely spends one month a year in Singapore working with his longtime colleague, Prof Neto. who is an advisor to Elcora.
Now, what do I mean by “true graphene?” I was fortunate enough to be present at a seminar on graphene at a facility of the US Dept of Defense on the (US) East coast, in October of last year. Elcora was the sponsor and Prof Neto was the distinguished invited speaker. The room was populated by scientists and engineers who the DoD refers to as “subject matter specialists,” who are defined as those researchers whose study and work give them expert knowledge of the “subject matter” at hand. In this case the subject matter is the commercialization of graphene to improve the strength of materials. Present were those who work on the problems of strengthening materials for personal protection and,or engaged in devising specialty coatings for ant-corrosion and anti-fouling for pipes, storage tanks, land vehicles, and ships.
Professor Neto began by referring to published work on the efficacy of graphene in the aforementioned applications. He noted that most of the work done on graphene applications gave results in conformance with theory. But, in fact, he said, the applications showed little improvement over using finely divided graphite for those same purposes. He then startled the audience by stating that the work in question showed poor results because it was done, in fact, with finely divided graphite rather than with graphene. He then showed results from his laboratory, utilizing what he defined and had and does produce there as “true graphene,” that were dramatically better than the results in the public literature.
After his technical presentation on true graphene and methods of its manufacture there was only one dissenter in the room to Prof Neto’s thesis that most, if not all, applications reported in the literature were not based on “true graphene” but rarer on finely divided graphite. The researchers were eager to get samples of true graphene.
Elcora is committed to the commercial production of battery and nuclear grade graphite by the end of the 2nd quarter, 2016. Off-takes have already been negotiated so that positive cash flow is expected by that time.
In addition, Elcora is committed to be the first global supplier of “true graphene” by 2nd quarter of 2016. This true graphene will be produced in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. An applications laboratory owned and operated by the company with projects overseen by professor Neto is also planned for the Halifax location.
Finally, and this cannot be overemphasized, Elcora’s costs of production of its industrial grade raw materials as well as its graphene and graphene products will be the lowest in the world. Thus its margins as well as its ability to compete will be world-class.
Academic, Industrial, and Government sponsored research laboratories will receive the first of the true graphene. After that selected commercial applications of true graphene will result in an expansion of Elcora’s downstream activities into consumer as well as military volume applications.
I sincerely believe that by mid 2016 at the latest the entire graphite/graphene space will be redefined by Elcora.
Copyright © 2016 ProEdge Media Corp. All rights reserved. More & Disclaimer »
This entry was posted in CleanTech Intel, Technology Intel, Technology Metals Intel, Uranium & Energy Intel and tagged Elcora, graphene, Graphene Corp., graphite, nuclear grade graphite, true graphene by Jack Lifton.
About Jack Lifton
Jack Lifton is a Founding Principal of Technology Metals Research, LLC. He is also a consultant, author, and lecturer on the market fundamentals of the technology metals, the term that he coined to describe those strategic rare metals whose electronic properties make our technological society possible. These include the rare earths, lithium and most of the rare metals. Jack Lifton is currently a non-executive Director for Texas Rare Earth Resources Corp. (OTCQX: TRER) and AMR, a private Turkish mining venture. He is a paid business operations/marketing consultant to Rare Element Resources (TSX: RES | NYSE MKT: REE), Ucore Rare Metals (TSXV: UCU | OTCQX: UURAF), Tasman Rare Metals (TSXV: TSM | NYSE MKT: TAS), and NovX21 (TSXV: NOV). He is also the founding co-principal of Technology Metals Research, LLC. His consulting is done through Jack Lifton, LLC, a consultancy he began in 1999 upon his retirement as the CEO of an OEM automotive supply company specializing in process chemistry and metals trading. Jack Lifton, LLC is a member of the Minor Metals Trade Association (www.mmta.co.uk) and Jack is an advisor to the Malaysian Academy of Science in Kuala Lumpur, and he is a member of that Academy’s Rare Earth Task Force.
http://investorintel.com/technology-metals-intel/elcora-fully-committed-to-battery-production-nuclear-grade-graphite-and-true-graphene/
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