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Hopes are rising for the commercialisation of batteries that are boosted by the inclusion of platinum and palladium following the engagement of an innovation centre to drive the next generation of battery chemistries to market.

Collaboration between the Florida International University-linked Lion Battery Technologies of the US and the Battery Innovation Center of Newberry, Indiana, will include creating prototypes for commercialisation consideration next year.

Lion's target is to develop batteries with specific energies that are 20% to 100% higher than current technologies while matching or beating present cycle lives.

Established four years ago by the Toronto- and New York-listed Platinum Group Metals and the Johannesburg-listed Anglo American Platinum, Lion has been developing the next-generation battery technology using platinum and palladium since 2019.

Anglo Platinum has the Mogalakwena, Amandelbult and Mototolo platinum group metals (PGM) operations in South Africa’s Bushveld Complex, and the North American Platinum Group Metals, headed by CEO Frank Hallam, is the discoverer and operator of a bulk underground PGM deposit in South Africa’s Waterberg, which is being developed with joint venture partners Impala Platinum, Mnombo Wethu Consultants, Japan Organisation for Metals and Energy Security, and Hanwa.

Successful commercialisation would mean that the extension of PGMs beyond use in the exhaust systems of internal combustion engines and ensuring the zero-emission advantage of fuel cell electric vehicles, to also making an energy-enhancing and weight-reducing entry into battery electric vehicles.

Since inception, the Lion team has focused on the development of proprietary lithium sulphur technology and enhancing the performance of existing commercial lithium-ion or NMC chemistries. Lion has a sponsored research agreement with Florida International University, including exclusive rights to intellectual property developed and will lead the commercialisation efforts.

On top of that, the Battery Innovation Center will now collaborate with commercial enterprises, universities, government agencies, and industry leaders to focus on the rapid development, testing, and commercialisation of safe, reliable, and lightweight energy storage systems for commercial and defence customers.

The mission of the Battery Innovation Center is to accelerate innovation in the field of battery technology by providing access to the entire spectrum of research and development to commercialisation, including low volume production, in a single 40 000 square foot facility.

Under an agreed scope of work, the Battery Innovation Center – which works with clients including BrightVolt, Rolls Royce, DuPont, Valvoline, GE Global Research, and Cummins – is to conduct independent small-scale and large-scale trials to validate Lion's PGMs-based based electrode composition, slurry, and films in lithium-sulphur and lithium-ion coin and pouch cells.

Research at Lion is led by Dr Bilal El-Zahab and Dr Wan Si Tang is the advanced battery manufacturing team leader at the Battery Innovation Center.

“We’re excited to collaborate and support the endeavour for next generation lithium-related battery chemistries toward higher technology readiness levels," Tang stated in a release to Mining Weekly.

The continent of Africa must industrialise as quickly as it can, South Africa’s Trade, Industry and Competition Deputy Minister Nomalungelo Gina said on Tuesday when she presided over the signing ceremony of contracts to advance a titanium beneficiation project in KwaZulu-Natal.

“Africa must catch up to other industrialised economies,” Gina stated as East China Engineering Science and Technology formalised an engineering procurement and construction contract as well as an operational and maintenance contract with Nyanza Light Metals, for the building of an 80 000 t/y titanium dioxide (Ti02) pigment plant in the Richards Bay Industrial Development Zone.

“The African Continental Free Trade Area enables us to change the game. Our endowments can be beneficiated on the continent, and be exported as value added products. Nyanza Light Metals represents that direction of downstream beneficiation,” said Gina, who emphasised the need for government officials to keep on improving project speed and turnaround times for investors.

“Investors are our salvation and we must be quick in sorting out regulatory blockages. This is critical for us as government because the spin-offs are far wider than corporate tax benefits. Associated with this project is vital job creation – permanent jobs – once the company operates in full after construction is completed. We will meet on the ground as we will come and do site inspection from time to time,” Gina said in acknowledging the contributions of Nyanza and the government of China.

TiO2, a bulk commodity produced using ilmenite or rutile, is a white pigment used in products such as paints, industrial coatings, plastics, papers, inks, foods, medicines and toothpaste. Ilmenite and rutile are found in KwaZulu-Natal's rich mineral sands patrimony.

Gina’s meeting of the leadership of the East China Engineering Science and Technology earlier this year in her Department of Trade, Industry and Competition offices, coincided with her meeting Chinese Ambassador Chen Xiadong in Pretoria. At that meeting, the Deputy Minister recognised the commitment to bring value in the Nyanza partnership.

“China’s experience in complex projects of this nature has been emphasised, and to us, that is reassuring. Nyanza represents our pride as Africans. We want it to succeed. The journey travelled, including the raising of capital to finance, has been commendable.

“The completion of Phase 1 has inspired confidence that construction deadlines will be met. Chinese people are known for project completion, either on time or ahead of schedule. I have no doubt that we will meet the set deadlines in the months that have been targeted," Gina stated.

The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition has been supporting Nyanza ever since it pledged its investment during President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Investment Conference five years ago.

“We have been accelerating with them in navigating the path, working with our Richards Bay Industrial Development Zone and the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government.

“I want to commit, once again, that we want to see this project continuing uninterrupted, right to end. As government, we will protect this project.

“The R4.5-billion investment represent an opportunity that South Africa and Africans can change the resource curse that Africa has been known for, which is being the net exporter of raw materials from gold, diamond, platinum, iron-ore and many more minerals, including titanium. That era belongs to the past,” said Gina.

Proper investment in green hydrogen generation has the potential to provide full employment and economic growth for decades to come as well as protect the planet from devastating climate change, Fortescue Future Industries and Fortescue Metals Group executive chairperson and founder Dr Andrew Forrest accentuated at the FT Hydrogen Summit.

Forrest called on the world’s energy companies to provide energy that does not harm humankind and countries to introduce simple legislation to stimulate investment in green hydrogen.

“We need to hold our energy giants to account and to give us energy that doesn’t harm us and they’re stalling on that.

“They’ve got all these fantastic excuses and I’m just saying that we have got to stop falling for it. It’s just a stalling tactic that we need to change,” said Forrest in response to Financial Times associate editor Pilita Clark.

Referring to the introduction of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), he said: “The IRA is working because it’s simple. If you want to serve up something complex to a banker, you’re not going to get any money.”

The IRA subsidises every kilogram of green hydrogen that is generated and countries really serious about full employment and economic growth for decades to come should model their policies on the IRA.

He described Africa has having the best natural endowment for green energy generation and remains intent on investing heavily in Africa.

But the IRA is proving extremely important for short-term business build-up and this was his response to Fortescue’s likely investment play-out.

“The play-out will be that we’ll invest billions of dollars and eventually tens of billions of dollars in the United States.

“Now, I want to do at least that in Africa, Europe and Latin America, but in the short term, we’re responsible for other people’s capital. You’ve got to go to where the returns are highest and that is the United States.

“We can’t knock the IRA. I had 45-50 minutes of vigorous debate with President Biden persuading him to take the limit off the amount of capital that they would invest into green energy. My argument was that it will pay itself back in new investment, in economic growth and in taxes every three or four years,” said Forrest, who also pointed to the advantage of ready-built US infrastructure.

“You can transport your green energy down the grid, have your electrolyser cracking facility right next door to a major consumer, the pipeline is that long.

“It’s so efficient and then you are subsidised heavily to do all that, which is not surprising because we’re getting a new industry going,” he added.

China, with its robotics and automation, is where electrolyser production could come down the cost curve significantly as it enters the era of machines making machines.

“Our future is machines making machines – machines which make electrolyers, machines which make long-distance high-density cables, solar panels which can crack hydrogen in the panel. All these technologies are emerging quickly and China is capturing that technology, putting it into machines and then getting machines to make those machines,” he said.

Clark recalled that Fortescue Future Industries last year expressed intent to produce 15-million tons a year of green hydrogen by 2030 and questioned him on how much green hydrogen the company was producing currently.

In response, Forrest said it had taken Fortescue Metals Group seven years to pay its first dividend and Fortescue Future Industries was on its first year versus seven.

“So, cut us a bit of slack,” he said, recalling the world had cut the oil industry 200 years of slack and trillions of dollars worth of subsidisation.

“They started at $1 600 a barrel relative. We’re being held to a completely different standard. Even plain and simple iron-ore projects take a few years. If we go final investment decision on several projects this year, that’s moving at lightning speed,” Forrest calculated.

On the perception that more research needed to be done ...

As iron-ore mining in South Africa, West Africa, the Pilbara, and Brazil happen to be hot and windy places, it makes a lot of sense for the global south to produce green hydrogen on site to reduce, deoxidise and pelletise iron-ore into an added-value product that can be shipped more efficiently.

Doing so will achieve for the global south the added value that the crude oil industry never delivered, the classic example being Nigeria, where crude oil is produced and sold for petrodollars and then reimported back into the country at five times the crude oil price, CWP Global strategy head Tom Dimitroff told the FT Hydrogen Summit covered by Mining Weekly. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

“The same thing applies in the case of maritime bunker fuel. You’re not going to produce green hydrogen, ship it to Rotterdam and then have ships load it at Rotterdam. Basically, you co-locate refuelling stations approximate to that,” Dimitroff commented.

In terms of policy initiatives, the global north had, he said, been hugely responsive, with some 16 countries coming forward with policies and 700 green hydrogen projects. Backed by last year’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) announcement, green hydrogen projects are all set to proliferate further in the US.

“The US will satisfy a lot of its indigenous hydrogen offtake within the US itself – and they’ll have spare capacity to ship hydrogen.

“Another paradigm we need to look at is possible trading in electrolysers and other types of technology, and not just the trading of hydrogen.”

Platinum group metal-catalysed proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysers are used to produce green hydrogen and oxygen from water.

“We’re delighted with governments coming forward and starting to set firm prices that can catalyse decisions in the market – and the US IRA does that.

“I’m very much looking forward to other governments following suit, but on a more cooperative basis so there’s no zero-sum politics involved,” added Dimitroff.

AXE Group chairperson Christian Leysen, who is a member of the Chamber of Representatives of Belgium, also highlighted the advantage of on-site green hydrogen production to avoid transport costs.

“I think hydrogen will be best used when it is generated close to the industry using the hydrogen,” said Leysen, who is a member of the Chamber of Representatives of Belgium.

EXPORTING GREEN HYDROGEN FROM SOUTH AFRICA

Oliver Rix, the energy partner of Baringa, a global consultancy focused on the energy transition, singled out the potential of South Africa, along with other countries like it, to produce and export green hydrogen effectively into Europe.

“But equally, if Europe can get its pipeline infrastructure right, then hydrogen can be moved from Iberia effectively into central Europe,” said Rix.

“If you start looking at the benefits that connecting hydrogen into electricity systems can provide, then that starts uncovering extra value.

“When you start looking at the potential renewables, the locations of demand and the potential for electrolysers to play a role in between those, then there is actually an economic case, even in a place like Japan,” added Rix.

Even in the UK, hydrogen is seen as a commodity able to generate considerable economic growth: “It was only when in 2019, when we did the report looking at how we get to net zero that suddenly we needed hydrogen. So, we are talking about the last 20% of decarbonisation.

“We’re talking about what we need for everything, but on the other hand, when you look at that, even in the UK, it means an amount of energy from hydrogen that’s approaching the scale of the electricity system that we have today.

“That’s building a big industry.even if you halve the numbers, it’s a big requirement,” Baroness Brown of Cambridge House of Lords crossbench member commented.

Most mining countries have already databased their critical minerals and made them public so that investors and their global partners can evaluate national production capacities and capabilities.

Against that backdrop, the Wits Mining Institute’s DigiMine Laboratory at University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) is setting out to build a comprehensive database to contribute to the understanding of the special abilities of critical green minerals and their applications in renewable energy in particular.

DigiMine is setting out to establish strong collaboration with mining industry players so that it can achieve its aspiration of serving as a central hub for information exchange, research collaboration, technology development, innovation, and the driving of green energy growth into mining.

It is intent on integrating its system into South Africa’s upcoming national cadastral system, and in doing so, being able to provide feedback to the cadastral system.

It envisages that its comprehensive database system will be able to contribute to evidence-based policymaking and a supportive regulatory environment.

Once it has the database, it expects to be able to provide the required framework for worker upskilling as per the needs of the industry.

“By having this database, we can look into the required skills and define customised courses and training material so that we can also contribute to human capital development,” DigiMine Laboratory head Ahsan Mahboob told Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

DigiMine set out initially to serve South African mining’s research and development needs in wireless communication, surveying, mapping and navigation, health and safety, and systems integration for smart mining, and then this year came up with the two new themes of cybersecurity and green energy minerals and technologies, the latter addressing South African mining’s energy the transition needs.

“We’ve observed with our global partners that there is a dire need to focus on the optimisation of the integration of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind energy, into the mining operations.

Most of the mining operations are moving towards renewables, for which storage is important, as well as to smart grid technology, which is required to transfer renewable energy to the mining operations. Then, most importantly, the energy management strategies need to ensure a reliable and efficient power supply, with DigiMine also planning to focus on power system modelling and planning.

“There’s a need to apply sophisticated and advanced numerical models to see how the energy is going to be utilised in mining operations, and how we can leverage on the digital technologies,” said Mahboob.

Green energy use can be modelled with the help of digital twinning technology, “and based on that model, you can optimise, based on artificial intelligence algorithms. The focus will be to do research in terms of demand pattern analysis and then integration requirements, which will definitely help cost-effectiveness,” added Mahboob.

Mining is also poised to benefit from the electrification of mining equipment, for which infrastructure to recharge battery electric vehicles is seen as critical. Wireless recharging stations being researched and developed obviate the need for vehicles to park while having their batteries recharged and allow for battery electric vehicles to be recharged while continuing to operate, which is also something which DigiMine wants to focus on and analyse.

Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer discusses the value Copper 360 has identified at its mines in the Northern Cape; Botswana Diamonds' new prospecting licence in the Northern Cape; and the importance of making South Africa a country of choice.

I’ll somehow re-emerge in the mining sector at some point in the future, outgoing Minerals Council South Africa CEO Roger Baxter said on Tuesday, when spoke to Mining Weekly in a Teams interview.

At the end of this month, Baxter will hand over to incoming CEO Mzila Mthenjane, who will inherit a Minerals Council that has been profoundly elevated to new heights of transformative safety, race, gender, and minerals diversity advancement. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

When Baxter joined the overwhelmingly pale and male Chamber of Mines back in 1992, there were 551 fatalities compared with 49 in 2020/ 2023, the lowest level in South African mining’s recorded history.

While the chamber was dominated by the gold mining industry with a bit of coal and diamond mining thrown in, today’s members of the rebranded Minerals Council mine 60-plus different minerals, representing 90% of the value of mineral production in South Africa and more than 90% of employment.

Moreover, the Minerals Council’s 32-member board has been led by a lady president for the last three years and is race and gender diversified.

Changes at employment equity and ownership levels mean that significant numbers of black South Africans, who have earned their stripes in the sector, today own and manage operations across a broad front. Involved today are 72 500 women versus virtually no women before.

In partnership with the Mandela Mining Precinct, the Department of Science and Technology and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, modernisation has been advanced through an expenditure of R500-million in the last five years.

Mining Weekly: What regulatory environment does mining need in South Africa to be able to compete on a level footing with other mining jurisdictions?

Baxter: What's important to state is that the regulatory framework is just one aspect. If you look at the Fraser Institute survey report on South Africa for 2022, the worst ranked area for us was security, and we are focused on the issues around improving the security environment in South Africa, but we need government to come to the party on that. Two or three of the other critical issues are around the fact that our logistics has fallen by 40% over the last five years and we don't have reliable electricity supply. Those factors, which were very much to our advantage five to ten years ago, have now become negatives in the Fraser Institute survey report. We can have the best regulatory environment in the world, but if we're not sorting out crime, logistics and the heartbeat of the economy, which is electricity supply, we're not going to be able to grow mining.

On the regulatory front, we do need a transparent online off-the-shelf cadastral system that is very easily accessible for free, with all the precompetitive geological information, showing who's got what prospecting right, so you can go in and apply. We need to have the regulatory framework organised in a way that it takes no more than two to three months to get the prospecting right versus the current 354 days, which simply doesn't work, particularly for venture capital exploration. We need to get all the backlog of the regulatory approvals cleared out the way, which the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) has now committed to do.

We need to have a exploration plan, and a lot more incentives around venture capital funding. In our view, this should be the flow-through shares equivalent, which is borrowing from the Canadian model, to get venture capital funded exploration ignited in South Africa, to unlock a pipeline of new exploration projects, which could unleash more investment in the mining sector. Those are the areas that we've been certainly engaging government on and the Minister did say last week that the five preferred candidates for the cadastral system have been being listed and they’re going to be looking at choosing one of them by the end of July, so let's see what happens.

If given the right envi...

London Aim- and Botswana-listed diamond exploration company Botswana Diamonds has been granted five-year prospecting licence on ground containing a cluster of kimberlites in South Africa.

Involved is the the Reivilo cluster of three kimberlite pipes, with sizes of 3.1ha, 1.7ha and 0.9ha, all within a 250-metre radius.

Samples of the drilling core produced G10 and eclogitic garnets, which are the optimal indicators for diamondiferous kimberlites.

Samples have been taken for microdiamond analyses. As reported earlier by Mining Weekly, Botswana Diamonds obtained a databank on Reivilo from London-listed Petra Diamonds in return for a royalty.

In addition, Siseko Minerals, in which Botswana Diamonds holds 51.7% of the shares, has increased its stake in the Maibwe joint venture in Botswana from 29% to 50%.

A cluster of four diamond bearing kimberlite pipes on PL186 have been discovered, with

surface sizes of 5ha, 6ha, 2ha and 1ha respectively. Significant quantities of microdiamonds have been found in one of these pipes.

“We’ve got two major projects areas. The one is in South Africa, in the Northern Cape, and I hope to be able to go into the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy conference in a couple of weeks to talk about this.

“This is the Reivilo cluster of kimberlites, which, interestingly, if you look in the historical literature, very, very little is spoken about it, and that’s quite rare for a kimberlite or diamond province in the world,” Botswana Diamonds CEO James Campbell told last week’s Junior Indaba.

“It’s five kimberlites, near surface, but need a fair amount of work, but they are diamondiferous.

“Then, in Botswana, in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, we have increased our stake in the Maibwe joint venture, which we’ve bought out from BCL, and one of those kimberlites had a very significant quantities of microdiamonds, so that is also work in progress and this is where we are looking at resource definition,” he added.

Copper company Copper 360, which listed on the AltX of the JSE in April, has more than two-million tonnes of copper its 12 mines, which is worth R560-billion, the Junior Indaba heard this week.

That copper is shallow, on surface and predeveloped, an upbeat Copper 360 CEO Jan Nelson said in his presentation covered by Mining Weekly. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

The Rietberg underground mine that will be brought online by the end of the year, has 25 000 t of copper metal for Copper 360 to mine, worth R1.4-billion.

The scramble for copper is on in South Africa and the Northern Cape is the main area of focus amid a significant global copper shortfall.

Copper 360 has 629-million shares in issue, a market capitalisation of R2.5-billion, and its share has experienced considerable liquidity to date, with 15% to 20% in free float.

As the only junior copper producer in South Africa, it has no peer group in the country. Its resource is pre-developed, is seen to be in a position to have a capex and opex advantage over any new entrant,

The R260-million it has raised South Africa is sufficient to see it through its current expansions.

In not experiencing problems in raising money in South Africa for developing South African minerals assets, positives in its favour were outlined by Nelson as including the company’s focus on simplicity, reliability, high margins, and high returns.

It has in-house engineering capability to plan and design, pilot, and then scale up. Its investors appear to like that model, which generates cash flow fast and results in high margins.

What is also seen to give it advantage is its cluster mining model deployed over nearly 19 000 ha that hosts 12 mines and 60 prospects.

It has a centralised modular plug-and-play processing facility at Nababeep and all the sources of ore that feed into it as well as an SXEW facility that produces copper plate from rock sources in the area, left behind by Newmont and Gold Fields, the companies that formerly mined in the area, which was once one of the world’s major copper districts. Newmont developed an underground mine that went down 2 km.

There are more than 30 mines in the tectonic environment that has large-scale forgotten copper deposits.

“We’re just picking that up, putting it through the plant, making copper plates, and then we neutralize our discard and we pump it back into the underground holes and fill up all the old underground mines. So, from that perspective, we’re also cleaning up the environment,” Nelson pointed out,

“Our operations are green and clean and the rocks behind there are some of the rocks we are processing so no mining is required. This is all the rock that was left behind by Newmont and Gold Fields, running at between 1% and 5% copper. We are actually just picking that up, putting it through the plant, making copper plates, and then we neutralize our discard and pump it back into the underground, and then fill up all the old underground mines, so from that perspective we are also cleaning up the environment.

“We’ve just discovered in our Wheal Julia open pit area, where we’ve got an area of 150 m by 100 m on surface running at an average grade of 5% copper, with 9%, 10% and 8% copper on surface.

“We’ve got a couple of these anomalies that we’ll trace up and drill in the next coming months but this certainly will put South Africa back on the map as one of the major copper districts,” added Nelson.

In the next 22 years, the world has to produce 700-million metric tonnes of copper, equivalent to the volume produced so far.

There just isn’t going to be enough copper, so being able to produce copper is going to be of a major strategic advantage.

The quantity of copper needed by renewables is increasing and critical is that by 2040, in terms of the European Union’s target for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and BEVs using about 85 kg of copper, the world will be needing about 42-million tons of copper.

The world is currently producing 20-million...

Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer discusses Lethabo Exploration’s off-take agreement; Marula Mining’s listing on the JSE; and Copper 360’s encouraging drilling results.