Just to keep your minds off the share prices (all IO miners are...

Just to keep your minds off the share prices (all IO miners are off today) and a bit of weekend entertainment and food for thought:

ArcelorMittel, a major world steel supplier and iron ore miner (80MT) is supplying Form Battery with really tiny iron balls for the cathode if their iron air battery which is close to commerialisation.



It basically works by turning iron to rust (pretty much magnetite back to hematite) and back in its cathode. It can supply power for days rather than hours, closing the green energy storage gap between LFP batteries. The people behind it and supporters are absolutely blue chip, so the technology should get up.

So this will be how the battery market appears to be shaping up this decade:

Lithium Ion and solid state batteries - high cost, light weight : High performance cars, trucks and other high power/low weight applications

Lithium Iron Phosphate - medium cost & iron content, low to medium weight (cost parity with = fossil fuel powered motors): Normal cars, scooters, home-industrial-grid level short-medium duration storage etc.

Sodium Ion - low cost, heavy weight, high iron content: Industrial and grid storage, CATL, now the worlds largest EV battery maker, starts production next year

Iron Air - Extremely low cost but very heavy with very high iron content: Long duration grid & industrial storage that can displace gas, starts commercial scale testing next year

Note that the last 3 all contain large amounts of iron in the battery cathode which makes up most of the weight of the battery and will be 80% of the storage used in the massive electrification of everything revolution that s now well underway, growing way faster than 100% and accelerating.

But no-one talks of iron powder as a battery material - but its clearly going to be the main ingredient. The reason is that normal iron ore is almost as common and cheap as tap water as minerals go and iron powder production has already reached millions on tons but realease huge amounts of Co2 in the process, probably dirtier than cast steel. However carbon neutral magnetite is as rare as bottled water - and that costs the same... or more... than petrol and could well become the preferred base material for iron powder production for many as end users increasingly demand it.

Iron Powder usage is exploding, rather than going into pellet making HIO should explore this market otherwise others will buy Supergrade and turn it into big bucks for themselves. Really big bucks. Volkswagon, the largest car maker in the world, see both steel and iron powders as vital in modern car production for EV power trains, batteries and other car parts and additive 3D printing manufacturing but bemoan the fact they have to pay up to 80 Euros or more per kg for the desired quality for some or their applications. Thats A$125 x 1000 = $125,000 per tonne!