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- Materials company Ecograf (EGR) shares are up following its sustainability focus for its Battery Anode Materials Facility in Kwinana, Western Australia
- Increasing the sustainability content has been a key focus for the company during the pre-construction and detailed engineering design phase
- Ecograf wants the project to have zero waste, water recycling and renewable energy
- Ecograf is up 4.22 per cent and is trading at 86.5 cents per share at 11:54 am AEST
Ecograf (EGR) has progressed with its sustainability focus for its Battery Anode Materials Facility in Kwinana, Western Australia.
The materials company is developing the processing facility to produce high-purity spherical graphite for battery anode manufacturers in Europe, Asia and America.
Notably, the project is expected to be the first graphite processing plant outside China.
Increasing the sustainability content to complement the Ecograf’s existing strong environmental, social and governance credentials has been a key focus during the pre-construction and detailed engineering design phase.
Ecograf wants the project to have zero waste, water recycling, renewable energy and have a carbon emissions management.
Zero waste operating strategy
The company has adopted a zero waste philosophy with process waste management.
This strategy includes no gaseous emissions, secondary use of the processing plant graphite bi-product fines and calcite waste products from wastewater treatment.
Part of this strategy includes greenRECARB. Currently under development, this is a green carbon recarburiser additive for the steel manufacturing industry.
This industry uses arc furnaces that need up to four per cent of carbon additive as recarburiser, which is currently being sourced from high polluting petroleum coke materials.
Global efforts to reduce emissions are expected to lead to new, cleaner supply chains in steel manufacturing.
“EcoGraf is positioning its product development program to support changes in manufacturing methods, like the move to hydrogen generated steel manufacturing,” the company said.
Water recycling
The Kwinana-Rockingham plant will be designed to process water from partly treated effluent from one of the Government’s wastewater treatment plants.
This water will be treated to produce high quality demineralised water used in the purification plant.
Ecograf hopes to achieve a 75 per cent reduction in water usage.
Renewable energy
Ecograf is currently evaluating renewable energy options. It is expected that the energy mix at Kwinana will include solar and the waste to energy plants currently under construction.
Carbon emissions management
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology for the electric vehicle (EV) automobile industry will ensure raw material supply chains meet the standards applied by the European Union and which are being adopted by the Australian Government.
The company hopes to lower its carbon emissions footprint through the development of LCA models with customers.
Ecograf is up 4.22 per cent and is trading at 86.5 cents per share at 11:54 am AEST.
