ASX-listed Sovereign Metals has started a graphite bulk sample programme at its Kasiya project, in Malawi, for qualification, downstream test work and product development purposes.
The company is upgrading in-country facilities to enable the continuous production of bulk samples for marketing.
"Kasiya will potentially be one of the lowest-cost flake graphite projects in the world and is also estimated to have one of the lowest global warming potentials of any current and future graphite projects. Sovereign wants to be at the forefront of these critical mineral supply chains and today's announcement is another important step towards achieving that.
"The world's economies need surety of supply for high-quality, low-carbon-footprint graphite suitable for use in lithium-ion batteries. Without graphite there is no electric vehicle revolution. The US, Japan and the European Union see it as a critical mineral and have allocated many billions of dollars towards securing graphite supply," says MD Dr Julian Stephens.
The company explains that, currently, material from the planned mining pits is sourced from remaining samples from the 2022 Kasiya resource drill programme.
The samples are blended to create a bulk sample, which is prepared for processing at the company's facility in Malawi where it is sized and deslimed – processes replicating the planned operation.
Post removal of the coarse and fine fractions, the remaining clean sand fraction containing the graphite and rutile is processed over a wet shaking table to isolate two gravity concentrates – a graphite pre-concentrate (with a target grade of 3% to 5% graphite) and a heavy mineral concentrate containing rutile.
The graphite pre-concentrate is planned to be sent to SGS Lakefield for flotation and final processing into a final graphite product. This initial representative graphite product will provide samples for downstream test work focussed on coated spherical purified graphite (CSPG) anode material through purification, spheronisation, coating and battery cell cycling tests; assessment and qualification for traditional industrial graphite markets, including the refractory, foundry and expandable graphite segments; and the future production of CSPG to be provided to anode or battery manufacturers for assessment and qualification.