Nice find Brian. Translated: Field trip from...

Nice find Brian.
Translated:

Field trip from boersengefluester.de to Dresden and to the Schwarze Pumpe chemical park, which is almost 100 kilometers further northeast. The aim of the excursion in mid-September 2023 is the battery activities of Altech Advanced Materials . Regular readers of boersengefluester.de know ( HERE ): Altech has developed a performance-enhancing anode material (Silumina) for use in electromobility and is currently building a pilot plant in the chemical park - to be precise in the halls of the Dock³ Lausitz competence center. The actual production will later take place in a nearby factory - the land for this has already been secured and developed. According to reports, the entire approval process with the Saxon authorities is going absolutely exemplary. It's also a message that you don't hear so often these days and all the complaining about location qualities.

“We are in the right place at the right time,” says CEO Uwe Ahrens. “The market for our products is huge.” A detailed feasibility study is planned before the end of the current year. The test facility in the Dock³ is scheduled to start operations in October; a total of 17 people are currently working on the project - in two-shift operation in the future. The total investment amount amounts to almost 90 million euros. At full production, 10,000 tons of coated anode material will be produced annually - the raw material comes from SGL Carbon, among others - for use in high-performance lithium-ion batteries.

Altech Advanced Materials Course: €12,300

Even more interesting from a stock market perspective, because it is more tangible, is the cooperation with the Dresden-based Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems(IKTS): The scientists have cracked something like the holy grail of the solid-state battery and are now able to produce a functional battery consisting essentially of table salt and nickel - surrounded by a ceramic core and a metallic cylinder. However, the areas of application for these large-volume battery packs (product name: Cerenergy) are not mobile applications like Silumina, but rather use in wind and solar parks or the charging infrastructure for heavy goods traffic. The price for a battery pack the size of a shipping container with a storage capacity of 1 MWh is around 820,000 euros. Not a little, but still a good investment.

Particularly charming: the battery cannot burn, is almost maintenance-free, has a lifespan of more than 15 years and can be easily transported and connected. It's no wonder that stock market investors are really into this technology and have already driven up Altech's share price quite a bit. The market value is currently around 85 million euros, although Altech only has a 25 percent stake in Silumina and only 18.75 percent in Cerenergy. So you have to be willing to take a fair amount of risk to invest in the stock. In addition, the company's financial needs are far from being completely covered, so there will be further capital measures.Altech Batteries Ltd. As far as the matter is concerned, the last word has probably not yet been spoken.

Black Pump Chemical Park

The big advantage of such a field trip, however, is that you can now imagine the investment story, which was previously quite abstract, much more vividly. The technology and the necessary infrastructure exist or are currently being set up and the scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute know exactly what they are doing. After all, 30 to 40 million euros have already flowed into the development of the solid-state battery. It is also not entirely unimportant that the chemistry between IKTS and Altech Advanced Materials is right. “It only took three months until the contract was signed. “That’s a world record at Fraunhofer,” says deputy institute director Roland Weidl during his presentation in Dresden. There were a lot of other people interested in the technology. In the end, they simply couldn't or didn't want to decide - probably also because the product almost sounds too good. The coming quarters will be very exciting for Altech Advanced Materials. Boersengefluester.de will continue to closely monitor the development. What is already impressive is how many companies from the chip and battery sector have settled in the area around Dresden and Leipzig