A Queensland start-up developing a way to improve the environmental impact of battery materials will consolidate its position in the global market thanks to $1 million from the Federal Government.
Pure Battery Technologies (PBT) is commercialising technology developed by The University of Queensland to extract nickel and cobalt and convert it to battery materials more effectively and in a more environmentally-friendly way.
The technology was licensed to PBT by UQ’s commercialisation company, UniQuest.
PBT was last month awarded a $1 million Accelerating Commercialisation grant by Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Karen Andrews.
CEO Bjorn Zikarsky said the grant would help PBT to increase awareness of its technology globally by allowing it to secure export and supply contracts, as well as commence the second stage of a planned refinery plant build.
“The international demand for EVs and energy storage is rapidly increasing,” he said.
“The current problem for battery producers is a lack of flexible, high-quality battery materials that don’t cause harm to the environment during production.
“We can produce commercial quantities of very high quality, affordable and environmentally-friendly battery material, which ensures the batteries making it to market have a smaller environmental footprint overall.”
UniQuest CEO Dr Dean Moss said the grant followed on from PBT raising $1.74 million to expand its operations in Brisbane and progress plans to open a manufacturing facility in Townsville in November.
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