Battery Raw Materials

How efficiently electrical energy can be stored and provided in batteries and fuel cells depends on the quality of the raw materials used in their manufacturing process.

Battery Grade Anode Graphite, made from natural graphite or in form of synthetic graphite based on petroleum coke, is the key raw material, for the anodes of Li-ion batteries. Even as silicon, which is currently added at 4-8%, is gaining importance, the characteristics of the graphite are most critical to improve battery performance.

Battery Performance, such as high capacity and energy density as well as short charging cycles, is particularly important for use in electric vehicles (EV).

Battery Anode Grade graphite therefore must have special properties to influence battery performance positively. Decisive factors are:

fine but steep particle size distributions
high tap density
low specific BET surfaces
spherical particle shape (Spherical Graphite - SPG)

While the product characteristics determine the performance, the grinding and spheronization process and equipment to achieve these characteristics, determine the economic and ecologic viability of such production.

To provide Graphite producers with a high capacity, low-energy, high-yield, economic and ecologic solution, we developed our NEA|Sphere solution.

Grinding and Spheronization Process - Efficency, Simplicity, Reliability

Contrary to the traditional micronisation and spheronization process for natural graphite, where each particle has to pass many individual mills in a cascading mill line, in the NEA|Sphere solution each particle only passes one grinding unit and one spheronization unit. Breaking down the process into the basic two process steps and using dedicated units to perform these process steps, offers the following advantages:

Efficiency

minimized particle stress
low amount of superfines
much higher yields
low specific energy consumption
low CO₂ footprint at low OPEX

Simplicity

only two serial units involved
low complexity
simple setup
high flexibility to adjust for changing quality requirements

Reliability

parallel instead of serial arrangement of Production units
high availability of the overall plant, as individual units may be maintained while keeping up the production of parallel units

Adaption of the Particle Size Distribution by Our GRC

Our GRC guide ring classifier offers a further possibility for the targeted modification of a particle size distribution in the fine and coarse range. This classifier is used, among other things, to separate specific ultra-fine fractions in order to achieve steep particle size distributions. This process offers the advantage that the finest fraction can be reused either by blending or in applications with other products. This increases the overall yield.