I had presumed that if a company like Hitachi wanted to do what...

I had presumed that if a company like Hitachi wanted to do what BASF and Imerys did that was specific to electric cables, then they would probably be smart enough to succeed. Japan is used to making high-value goods from imported raw materials.

The metallurgical process of excluding contaminants from HPA is something that I am not qualified to discuss. All I now that to date taking industrial grade alumina to battery-grade alumina has not been done, or at least not in a commercially viable way. Coming at the problem from a kaolin start, rather than bauxite, seems to have possibilities. I suspect that it is not so much an issue of the percentage of alumina (within reason), but rather the absence of specific contaminants lie iron and sodium. FYI's kaolin from Cadoux only has about 29% alumina, but that has not dampened the enthusiasm of its management.

My background is IT, so I do not want to pretend that I know any more than a layman in the fields of geology, mining and metallurgy. I am happy that there is a market for dry-processed kaolin of the type that WAK intends to produce, and if anything novel pops to the fore that results in an improved market, that's a bonus.