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Murray Ward
Critical Resources has brought in the heavy hitters, launching a collaborative research project with Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO, to help optimise and scale up its novel Dry Supersonic Deposition (DSD) battery manufacturing technology.
The project, co-funded through CSIRO’s Kick-Start program, will see the science agency apply its powerful “digital twin” modelling capability – essentially a computer-based virtual replica – to help de-risk and refine the company’s unique battery production process. The savvy move could potentially help the company pivot from the lab to cracking the code on cost-effective, high-yield manufacturing at scale.
While the race for better battery chemistry often grabs the headlines, the real bottleneck to next-generation power is often found on the factory floor. The industry is now firmly focused on moving new technologies into pilot production, making process optimisation and upscaling work particularly timely.
Critical’s DSD process, developed in the US with the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, aims to solve a fundamental problem in battery manufacturing. Conventional methods rely on a “wet slurry” process in which active materials are mixed with a polymer binder and a toxic solvent, coated onto foil and then baked in energy-intensive ovens.
The DSD process throws out the playbook, removing the solvent, binder and drying oven altogether. Instead, cathode and electrolyte materials are accelerated to supersonic speeds and deposited dry in a single step. The company says this opens a cleaner and potentially cheaper manufacturing pathway.
‘Kick-Start is deliberately our first project with CSIRO-our intention is that it is not the last.’
Critical Resources managing director Tim Wither
The science behind the process has been validated, with an independent peer-reviewed paper in July confirming the formation of a dry-deposited cathode. The initial unoptimised trials produced a coin cell that retained roughly 85 per cent of its capacity over 500 cycles, with a coulombic efficiency – the percentage of initial charge discharged – above 99.5 per cent, demonstrating strong durability.
Now, the challenge is moving from a working process to a manufacturable one. This is where CSIRO comes in.
Researchers at CSIRO’s Lab22 advanced manufacturing facility in Melbourne will build a three-dimensional virtual model of the DSD spray nozzle and deposition environment. The research agency’s digital twin will then allow the team to simulate everything from gas flow and particle trajectories to shock wave locations, helping pinpoint the conditions that cause defects and test potential process improvements before putting them into practice.
Critical Resources managing director Tim Wither said: “The battery industry has no shortage of promising chemistry. What it is short of is chemistry that can be manufactured at cost, at scale and repeatably — and that, more than materials performance, is what holds solid-state battery architecture back. With South Dakota Mines and now CSIRO we are finding solutions on both sides: the materials and the manufacturing.”
The total project budget is $100,000, with CSIRO contributing up to $50,000 and Critical funding the balance. Under the arrangement, the company will own the intellectual property generated from the project’s simulation outputs, analysis and final report.
The fresh collaboration is designed to strengthen the company’s IP position and provide the technical substance for a licensable manufacturing package. This is in line with Critical’s strategy to commercialise the technology through partnerships rather than building its own cell manufacturing capacity.
The CSIRO work will run in parallel with the company’s existing evaluation program in the US, which is conducting full-format pouch cell testing and integrating its solid-state electrolytes.
While the advanced battery evaluation continues in the lab, Critical says it remains focused on a diversified critical metals portfolio, including the company’s flagship Mavis Lake lithium project in Ontario, Canada, which hosts an eight-million-tonne resourcegrading 1.07 per cent lithium oxide. Additionally, the company holds the Halls Peak base metals project in New South Wales and a developing gold exploration portfolio in New Zealand.
With the basic science already peer-reviewed and published, Critical is now getting down to the nuts and bolts of manufacturability. By using CSIRO’s sophisticated modelling to write the engineering playbook for its DSD technology, the company appears to be building a data-rich package that a future licensing partner could take and run with.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
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