CarbonScape, a New Zealand-based battery material innovator, has secured an $18 million investment led by Stora Enso Oyj and joined by Amperex Technology Ltd (ATL) and other strategic partners to commercialize the production of biographite in Europe and the US. Biographite, produced from forestry and timber industry by-products, offers a sustainable alternative to graphite in lithium-ion batteries. It addresses the growing demand for lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles (EVs) and grid-scale energy storage, as the global supply of graphite struggles to keep up with demand, resulting in a forecasted deficit of 777,000 tons per annum by 2030.
Graphite constitutes up to 50% of the weight of a lithium-ion battery, and its production is carbon-intensive and costly. CarbonScape's biographite is carbon-negative and produced from renewable sources, saving up to 30 tons of CO2 emissions per ton of material compared to synthetic or mined graphite. It provides security of supply for European and US-based battery manufacturers, reducing their carbon footprint, and offers a more sustainable solution compared to the current supply chain, which relies heavily on petroleum-based or mined graphite.
This investment aims to support CarbonScape in scaling its business and developing production facilities in Europe and the US. It brings together expertise from all sides of the supply chain, including ATL, a global lithium-ion battery innovator, and Stora Enso, a renewable products provider and one of the largest private forest owners globally. CarbonScape's biographite production process could potentially reduce sector emissions by more than 86 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030.
Biographite offers a cleaner, competitive, and more secure raw material for the global battery market, and its production can be localized, reducing geopolitical risks associated with mineral supply chains. CarbonScape's approach allows it to produce enough biographite to meet half of the projected global graphite demand for EV and grid-scale batteries by 2030 using less than 5% of the forestry industry by-products generated annually in Europe and North America.
This development represents a significant step toward a more sustainable and secure supply of battery materials for the rapidly growing EV and renewable energy industries.
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