The main purpose of the facility is to produce the very best quality graphite for a host of applications; lithium-ion batteries for electric cars, tools, cell phones, etc. As well as applications including, solar panels, graphene for use in fabric inks, wearable technologies, safety, health care and a vast array of other high tech applications.
Over the next 6 months, SJC and the engineering group will work towards the first step of running the mill to create high quality material from both a graphite concentrate through to graphite for high tech applications. This will be completed through numerous mill tests and multiple series of lab studies. Each step will be documented to continue the best practices for; extraction, floatation, drying, sizing, shaping and coating the material. The second step will be optimization of the entire process from mine pit to finished anode. The significance of both steps is considered one of the most important goals for the Corporation. The first step will assure the quality meets the customer specification and the second step will assure the Company can reasonably produce the volume the customer desires at a profit. The results will create the bases of a feasibility study that the Company plans to prepare as part of the 2018 work initiatives.
The Company will continue over the next year to add more equipment and enhance the overall services and production offerings. The Company will start to market the facility in the second quarter with a goal of providing full lab and mill services to other raw material mining companies. Further, once the Company has completed the optimization phase, an independent engineering firm will be engaged to audit the operational costing model and capital expenditure model for future planning purposes. The company through various private placements has funded the design build with an estimated cost of $2,000,000.