King River Resources has signed a Participant Agreement with the Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre, or “FBICRC”. The $120 million Australian organisation provides industry-led research and seeks to grow Australia’s competitiveness and contribution in the global battery industry value chain. King River will now brush shoulders with about 60 other members of the alliance, including heavyweights BHP, IGO and the Federal Government.
The company will support the research centre on two key undertakings – a Cathode Precursor and Active Materials Production Pilot Plant project and a Development and Application of Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries project.
King River says it will retain all the intellectual property from its own operations to date, whilst gaining a share of the intellectual property from the FBICRC projects it participates in.
The company believes FBICRC provides an opportunity to unlock the value of Australia’s mineral riches by focusing on processing raw materials locally instead of exporting them to international markets.
The Perth-based FBICRC brings together about 70 industry participants that also takes in four State Governments, eight Australian universities and a plethora of ASX-listed companies including Lynas Corporation, Lithium Australia, Blackstone Minerals and Ardea Resources.
FBICRC holds a portfolio of 17 research projects spanning the battery value chain. Through a six-year research program the organisation is aiming to deliver commercial, proprietary outcomes to facilitate industry expansion in the emerging battery industry sector.
King River, through its proprietary “ARC” high purity alumina, or “HPA” refining process, has developed a simple processing circuit that uses conventional crystallisation and calcination of a precursor product to generate high-quality 4N HPA powder that is more than 99.99 per cent pure aluminium oxide powder.
The company is currently re-evaluating its definitive feasibility study strategy that is considering large-scale production of HPA at a processing plant in Kwinana in Western Australia. King River will now also look to leverage its proprietary processing technology to evaluate an initially smaller-scale operation.
The scaled-down version of the proposed operation will only consider production of high-value aluminium precursor compounds used in lithium-ion batteries.
As a participant of FBICRC, King River will be mixing with the wheelers and dealers of Australia’s battery industry which can only bode well for the Perth-based company as it looks to churn out critical materials for use in lithium-ion batteries.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
