Whereas not a producer but, Nouveau Monde is growing its Matawinie graphite mission in Saint-Michel-des-Saints, 120 km north of Montreal, as a carbon-neutral open pit operation, with a industrial manufacturing goal of 2023.
The junior has a vertically built-in enterprise mannequin that includes mining at Matawinie and producing value-added types of high-purity graphite at its purification facility in Bécancour to serve the rising lithium-ion battery and gas cell markets. It’s additionally devoted to the creation of a “Battery Passport” – a world answer that might enable information sustainability, duty and traceability information securely to clients.
The corporate is already a part of a GBA-associated initiative to determine traceability within the graphite provide chain, a mission that was began final October with Propulsion Quebec, OPTEL Group and the Worldwide Reference Middle for Life Cycle of Merchandise, Companies and Techniques (CIRAIG).
“Consistent with our company values and dedication to our communities, now we have embedded the essence of the World Battery Alliance ideas into our enterprise mannequin,” famous Nouveau Monde president and CEO, Eric Desaulniers. “Now, we’ll be part of international leaders of our business to assist drive ESG practices and transparency into our sector. This represents an distinctive alternative to share information, form tomorrow’s requirements and speed up the wheel of change. I’m assured that our present and future tasks will each contribute to and profit from this management initiative.”
Matawinie growth
Since receiving provincial authorization for Matawinie’s growth in February, Nouveau Monde has superior detailed engineering of the mission, begun civil development works and inked an settlement with Metso Outotec for key mineral processing gear.
The operation is anticipated to supply 100,000 tonnes of high-purity graphite yearly.
It’s additionally conducting a feasibility examine for a commercial-sized plant in Bécancour, which might produce 42,000 t/y of lithium-ion battery anode materials and three,000 t/y of purified flakes for specialty functions. The examine is anticipated to be accomplished within the second quarter of subsequent 12 months.
The Stage 1 plant, within the last phases of commissioning, can produce 2 t/y of spherical graphite. The power to purify graphite will probably be added this 12 months, with the flexibility to supply coated spherical purified graphite deliberate for early 2022.
Nouveau Monde introduced in July that it was making use of for a patent for its proprietary purification know-how, which makes use of excessive temperatures and a chlor-based reagent as an alternative of hydrofluoric acid. Testing has proven the method can ship a purity of 99.95% and above.
(This text first appeared in The Northern Miner)
