By: Wonder Guchu

Graphite mining company Gratomic Inc. said they successfully transferred 730 tonnes from its Namibian mine Aukam near Luderitz to the run of the mine stockpile.

Run-of-Mine stockpiles are essential components in the mining value chain because they can be used as temporary storage to balance inflow and outflow and provide an opportunity for blending material.

Graphite is used in pencils, lubricants, crucibles, foundry facings, polishes, arc lamps, batteries, electric motor brushes, and nuclear reactors cores.

The Canadian-based company also said large quantities of high-quality vein graphite had been shipped for testing to confirm its viability as an anode material.

Anode materials are the negative electrode in lithium-ion batteries and are paired with cathode materials in a lithium-ion cell.

Gratomic is a Canadian-based multinational company with projects in Namibia, Brazil, and Canada. The company is ranked third in the top 10 performing mining stocks on the 2022 TSX Venture 50.

The Aukam Graphite Project is in southern Namibia, close to the port city of Luderitz. The property hosts five underground adits, which were mined periodically between 1940 and 1974.

Five surface stockpiles from the historical mining occurred on the property, and 73 composite samples were taken from the lower three stockpiles, assayed and averaged 42% Carbon as graphite (Cg).

In 2012, Gratomic CEO & President Arno Brand searched for high-quality graphite assets to stake a position in the burgeoning graphite industry.

Brand’s global search brought up an exquisite example of high-quality vein graphite in his home nation of Namibia, the Aukam Graphite Project. On top of the high-quality material available on-site, Aukam had already proven its viability through small-scale, historic mining projects throughout the 20th century.

Brand discovered that Aukam was more than an average asset with superior graphite uncharacteristically rare, with seemingly endless graphite veins snaking through the walls.

The discovery of large, visible graphite veins at the surface that later measured over 15 kilometres long was the catalyst for the founding of Gratomic Inc.

Gratomic Inc started constructing the pilot plant in 2018 using a patent-pending combination of gentle crushing, floatation, drying and finishing.

Regarding the latest progress, Brand said the pace at which the bench-mining team is operating gives the company confidence as they gear up toward the next and final phases of pre-production.

Gratomic chief operations officer and head of Graphite Marketing and sales Armando Farhate said the Aukam mining team exceeded expectations.

“Although I was sure that we would move very quickly once the programme had started, having already accomplished this large a stockpile so early on is a very welcome surprise”, Farhate said.

Gratomic announced a collaboration agreement with Forge Nano, an outfit with proprietary technology and manufacturing processes to make angstrom-thick coatings fast, affordable and commercially viable for various materials, applications and industries.

Forge Nano is based in Louisville, Colorado, United States.

Gratomic said the cooperation with Forge Nano is a crucial element to support their strategies towards the value-addition of graphite production for anode applications – micronisation, spheronisation and coating.

The Volkswagen Group invested US$10 million in Forge Nano Inc. in 2014 to reinforce specialist knowledge in the field of battery research.