Battery Metals

Teck Resources Canada’s largest diversified miner, plans to announce in December which company will be its development partner at the Quebrada Blanca copper mine in northern Chile.

In August, the Vancouver-based miner received regulatory approval for a $4.8 billion extension of the mine. Teck sees the Quebrada Blanca Phase 2 project as its most significant growth opportunity, with the potential to double its copper business.

A potential third expansion will make the Quebrada Blanca mine Chile’s second largest copper operation, after Escondida, and one of the world’s top five copper mines.

According to Chilean paper El Mercurio, Teck’s CEO Don Lindsay said the company was also studying a Phase 3 for the mine, which will double Quebrada Blanca’s capacity to 600,000 tonnes of copper a year from the 300,000 it’s expected to achieve once Phase 2 is completed.

That potential extension will make the mine Chile’s second largest copper operation, after Escondida, and situate it among the world’s top five copper mines.

In terms of costs, Phase 3 would need a $5 billion-investment, as it would have to include the installation of a new concentrator.

Last year, Quebrada Blanca produced 23,400 tonnes of copper, generating a $182 million revenue.

Teck is considering selling a 30% to 40% stake in the project, with Rio Tinto, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Freeport-McMoRan rumoured to be the most likely bidders.

The company owns 90% of the mine and Chile’s national mining company ENAMI holds a 10% preference share interest in it, which does not require the state agency to fund capital spending.

According to the researchers, the new technology held its own during side-by-side comparisons with traditional electronic displays.

Scientists in the Netherlands have found a way to incorporate graphene into electronic displays, yielding high resolutions and faster frame rates, while consuming less energy.

Better displays are needed for the next generation of electronics, like virtual reality systems. The best electronic displays in use today, like those found on smartphones, require significant amounts of energy from batteries.

Reflective displays, like those found on e-book readers, use small amounts of energy, but don’t feature the speed or resolution to support standard technologies like OLED or LCD.

With graphene, however, scientists were able to create a reflective display capable of higher resolutions and faster frame rates.

Graphene is made up of a one-atom thick sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb-like structure. It is strong, flexible, lightweight, nearly transparent and a superb conductor of heat and electricity. The carbon sheet is ideal for use in the construction of micro-electromechanical systems, or MEMs.

Once graphene is incorporated into a MEM, membranes in the display can be manipulated using electrical and optical inputs.

“Graphene is a versatile material with excellent mechanical, optical and electrical properties, and the combination of all of them enables the GIMOD technology,” lead researcher Samer Houri, nanoscientist at Delft University of Technology, said in a news release.

In the GIMOD display, pixels are composed of electrically controlled membranes, which reflect incoming white light. The graphene membranes flicker at speeds imperceptible to the human eyes.

According to the researchers, the new technology held its own during side-by-side comparisons with traditional electronic displays.

“We showcased GIMOD prototypes of 2500 pixels per inch in the Mobile World Congress, and many players from the display industry reacted quite enthusiastically,” said Cartamil-Bueno, creator of the graphene display. “While participating in several business contests in Germany, I have been preparing the team and securing capital. In few weeks, we will launch the startup to commercialize GIMOD components, aiming to tackle the VR market because that is where GIMOD outperforms every other technology.”

Epoxy is an insulator, and is commonly used in coatings, adhesives, electronics, industrial tooling and structural composites.

Metal or carbon fillers are often added for applications where conductivity is desired, like electromagnetic shielding. But there’s a trade-off: more filler brings better conductivity at the cost of weight and compressive strength, and the composite becomes harder to process.

Rice University’s Dr. James Tour and co-authors replaced metal or carbon powders with a 3D foam made of nanoscale sheets of graphene.

“The graphene foam is a single piece of few-layer graphene. Therefore, in reality, the entire foam is one large molecule,” Dr. Tour said.

“When the epoxy infiltrates the foam and then hardens, any bending in the epoxy in one place will stress the monolith at many other locations due to the embedded graphene scaffolding. This ultimately stiffens the entire structure.”

The puck-shaped composites with 32% foam were marginally denser, but had an electrical conductivity of about 14 Siemens/cm (a measure of conductivity).

The foam did not add significant weight to the compound, but gave it seven times the compressive strength of pure epoxy.

Easy interlocking between the graphene and epoxy helped stabilize the structure of the graphene as well.

“When the epoxy infiltrates the graphene foam and then hardens, the epoxy is captured in micron-sized domains of the graphene foam,” Dr. Tour explained.

The team upped the ante by mixing multi-walled carbon nanotubes into the graphene foam.

The nanotubes acted as reinforcement bars that bonded with the graphene and made the composite 1,732% stiffer than pure epoxy and nearly three times as conductive, at about 41 Siemens/cm, far greater than nearly all of the scaffold-based epoxy composites reported to date.

“The material could initially replace the carbon-composite resins used to pre-impregnate and reinforce fabric used in materials from aerospace structures to tennis rackets,” Dr. Tour said.

The team’s work is published in the journal ACS Nano.

Armenia’s aggression policy causes great damage to Azerbaijan in all spheres, including the economic and environmental ones, Zakir Ibrahimov, chairman of the board of AzerGold CJSC, told Trend Nov. 17 on the sidelines of the international conference entitled “Illegal activity in the occupied Azerbaijani territories and the responsibility of third parties” in Baku.

He noted that a report was prepared regarding illegal activities in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, and was sent to the country’s Prosecutor General’s Office.

He said that the process initiated by AzerGold CJSC to bring to justice Armenian companies, individuals and officials, as well as foreign companies related to the production of non-ferrous metals and operating in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, particularly in Nagorno-Karabakh region, was continued by the Prosecutor General’s Office of Azerbaijan.

“Non-ferrous metals [in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan] have been mined for more than a decade,” he noted. “The huge multimillion-dollar revenues of Armenian companies are registered in the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), this allows to carry out huge financial transfers to the budget of the so-called NKR, as well as to the budget of Armenia.”

That is, the Armenian budget receives tax revenues and financial contributions at the expense of the profits from the sale of precious metals from the occupied Azerbaijani territories, he added.

“Naturally, Armenia’s occupation policy, its aggression against Azerbaijan lies in the core of all this,” Ibrahimov stressed.

The investigation carried out by the Prosecutor General’s Office of Azerbaijan revealed that managers of the Vallex Group, Base Metals, ACP, Lerna Metalurgiayi Institute, Teghout and other companies registered in Armenia and other countries, as well as individuals, repeatedly illegally crossed Azerbaijan’s state border from Armenia, and created facilities together with other persons in the occupied territories.

It was established that they also received illegal income from the extraction of a large quantity of gold and other non-ferrous metals at the fields in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan’s Kalbajar district, the fields of Zangilan, Tartar district and other fields.

During the investigation, using the high-definition imagery of the Azersky satellite of Azerkosmos OJSC and the geological survey data, the facts of conducting illegal mining operations at ore deposits located in Azerbaijan’s occupied territories were proved.

Regarding these facts, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office launched a criminal case under articles 192.2.3 (illegal entrepreneurship) and 318.2 (illegal crossing of Azerbaijan’s state border).

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

Copper was set to end the week 2.5 percent higher as signs of supply tightness supported prices, but worries about the outcome of the U.S.-China trade dispute limited gains.

Supply shortages were also powering zinc towards a 4 percent weekly gain — its biggest since September.

Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange was up 0.4 percent at $6,209.50 a tonne at 1559 GMT. Prices rallied after news that Chinese smelter Jiangxi Copper and miner Antofagasta had agreed lower treatment and refining charges for 2019, said ING analyst Warren Patterson. “This is showing that either there is a tightening in concentrate supply or too much spare smelting capacity in China. I think it’s a mixture of the two,” he said.

Metals received a further boost when the U.S. dollar weakened after Federal Reserve officials appeared to question the pace of interest rate rises and from strong U.S. manufacturing data. A weaker dollar makes metals cheaper for buyers who hold other currencies.

But while the fundamentals were good for copper, uncertainty about U.S.-China trade talks were weighing on prices, Patterson added.

COPPER STOCKS: Headline copper inventories in LME-registered warehouses fell by 5,425 tonnes to 161,025 tonnes, nearing last month’s 10-year low of 136,675 tonnes.

SPREAD: Another signal of tight supply is the premium of cash copper over the three-month contract , which has drifted from a near four-year high of $47 last month to $20.50 but is still far above recent norms. TECHNICALS: Copper was holding above its technically important 50-day and 100-day moving averages around $6,160-$6,165.

U.S.-CHINA TRADE TALKS: A senior White House official told Reuters a written response sent this week by China to U.S. demands for trade reforms was unlikely to trigger a breakthrough at talks. Worries that rising tariffs could damage China’s economy have helped to push industrial metals prices sharply lower in recent months. China is the world’s largest consumer of metals. ZINC: Benchmark LME zinc was up 1.5 percent on the day at $2,617 a tonne and up 3.7 percent this week, with stockpiles in the LME’s warehouse system falling to a 10-1/2-year low of 125,400 tonnes. SPREAD: The premium of cash zinc over three-month metal has surged to $75.75, the highest since October last year, from a discount of more than $20 two months ago, suggesting a shortage of available material.

OTHER METALS: LME aluminium was up 0.3 percent at $1,935 a tonne, nickel was 1.4 percent higher at $11,415, lead had gained 3.1 percent to $1,990 and tin was flat at $19,385.

South Korea says it has developed lithium-ion batteries that can double the operational hours of submarines compared to those with lead-acid batteries.

The lithium-ion batteries were created for the country’s next-generation attack submarines, expected to launch in the mid-2020s, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, or DAPA.

Following 30 months of development, the batteries passed a technology readiness assessment, a step toward integration on a weapons platform, the agency said in a news release.

“Development of lithium-ion batteries for submarines is a great achievement in the global submarine market,” said Rear Adm. Jung Il-shik of the DAPA’s next-generation submarine project group. “We expect this successful development of lithium-ion batteries to raise South Korea’s reputation as a submarine maker, as well as to have a great ripple effect through the commercial sectors.”

Samsung SDI, the world’s largest supplier of lithium-ion batteries, including ones for cellphones, manufactured the battery module to be mounted on the second batch of three KSS-III submarines. Hanwha Land Systems is responsible for integrating the modules and other parts on the submarine, which is built by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering.

The first of the three locally designed KSS-III Batch I diesel-electric submarines was launched in September, and two more hulls are expected to be under construction until 2024. According to the DAPA, the KSS-III class is 83.5 meters long and has a beam of 9.6 meters. It has a displacement of 3,358 tons when surfaced, and 3,705 tons when submerged.

The boat is known to be equipped with six vertical launch system tubes and able to accommodate a locally developed cruise missile. It can sail at a maximum speed of 20 knots with a cruising range of 10,000 nautical meters, DAPA officials said.

With a slight redesign and some system upgrades, the Batch II subs are expected to have improved capabilities in attacking strategic land-based targets and performing anti-submarine warfare, the officials said.

The Korean developers prioritized the safety and reliability of the lithium-ion batteries, which were once considered expensive and too unstable for submarines, another DAPA source with the submarine project group told Defense News.

“It’s no doubt that South Korean companies have the world’s best technology of lithium-ion batteries, but if an accident happened like an explosion, such technology is to be meaningless,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the secrecy of the development project. “So we’re really focused on safety and reliability rather than performances. We even lowered the level of performances to an extent on purpose to ensure higher and better safety standards.”

To that end, the new batteries have undergone tests simulating harsh conditions, such as an explosion, seawater, fire and extreme temperatures, he noted.

“The Korean lithium-ion batteries still would be better than those of competitors,” he asserted, referring to Japan’s recent integration of lithium-ion batteries into its Soryu-class diesel-electric attack submarine.

The 84-meter-long boat for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force was launched Oct. 4, with an operational data set for 2020. GS Yuasa, a Kyoto-based battery manufacturer, developed the lithium-ion batteries for the Soryu-class sub.