Advance trebles fibre production

A GEELONG joint venture has strong claims to being the most efficient producer of the world’s most advanced fibre after a major breakthrough.

World-leading Geelong research has led to production advances in the super flexible, super strong boron nitride nanotubes (BNNT).

The breakthrough has more than tripled the potential output of the expensive fibres from a single production “module” at little extra cost.

As light as carbon fibre, BNNT is 100 times stronger than steel.

BNNT Technology Limited, a joint venture involving Deakin University and the PPK Group, is preparing to install a second $850,000 production module at the university.

The venture’s head scientist, Luhua Li, a Deakin senior research fellow, said a single module had been able to produce 1kg of BNNT over a 5-day period.

“This means our annual BNNT production capacity per module could be around 50kg, easily three times our original BNNT production estimate of 15kg per annum per module,” Dr Li said.

“Our team of world-leading scientists have done an outstanding job in developing the process to this level of mass production.”

The ASX-listed PPK Group said the breakthrough meant that BNNT Technology Limited was now the lowest cost pure BNNT producer in the world.

PPK executive chairman Robin Levison told investors the production milestone still included the finished BNNT achieving a greater than 95 per cent purity.

“Only two years ago, when PPK acquired its 50 per cent stake in BNNT, the company was producing only 3g per day,” Mr Levison said.

He said the achievement confirmed

BNNT Technology Limited was well advanced in terms of producing the fibre in pure grade and in commercial quantities, and placed the venture “in an excellent position to advance upstream applications in partnership with Deakin University”.

One of those, Li-S Energy Limited, is aiming to create a superior battery for potential use in electric vehicles using BNNT.

The Li-S Energy joint venture, 20 per cent owned by Deakin University, is notionally valued at $300m after recently completing a $20m pre-IPO capital raise.