A Calgary lithium battery company is establishing its own mineral supply chain by staking ground in northwestern Ontario.
Through electronic staking, Volt Carbon Technologies created two lithium and graphite projects last month near Nakina and Manitouwadge, respectively.
The 3,100-hectare Abamasagi Lake Lithium Project, northwest of Nakina, and the 2,662-hectare Manitouwadge Area Flake Graphite Project, north of that town, were staked based on recommendations by provincial geologists.
Volt, which bills itself as a publicly traded carbon science company, said in news releases in January that it plans to do some grassroots exploration on the properties sometime this year.
With other graphite, molybdenum and copper properties in Quebec and British Columbia already in the fold, Volt been adding claims with potential critical rare earth elements that could be used to build lithium ion batteries at its plant in Guelph.
The high-tech company, formerly known as Saint Jean Carbon, is developing two proprietary technologies.
At a testing facility in Guelph, Volt is building prototypes of a next-generation lithium metal battery for automotive, aerospace and consumer electronics applications. The company believes its Solid Ultrabattery can be a disruptive technology that can manufactured at a lower cost, will be longer lasting and will be safer to use. The innovative work is being done through a partnership with the University of Waterloo.
In Scarborough, Volt is developing a mineral separation processing technology for recovering graphite. Dubbed the Air Classifier, it uses a dry circuit that uses no water and thus creates no wet tailings which significantly reduces the environmental impact. Volt said it intends to use samples of graphite ore taken from their properties for testing in this technology.
