Gratomic achieving 99.38% Cg w/o heat (why its big/matters)? Inner Mongolia is an important Chinese production hub for synthetic graphite due to its relatively low electricity unit price. The graphitisation process, a major part of synthetic graphite manufacture, requires very high temperatures (above 2,300oC) and consumes large amounts of energy (more than 12,000 kwh/t). In China, the graphitisation step is often carried out separately from the rest of the synthetic graphite manufacturing process at independent facilities. Inner Mongolia is home to approximately 46% of China’s graphitisation capacity according to ICCSINO. Downstream AAM, for use in lithium-ion battery anodes, consists of natural or synthetic graphite that has typically been coated to improve performance, and which may be blended with other carbon and non-carbon products.
Since early 2021, Inner Mongolia has applied a strict energy consumption control policy for high-energy consuming industries in response to country’s 14th Five-Year Plan (FYP), with the central government setting targets to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2060. The new controls have limited the production of synthetic graphite from existing producers but may also make it more difficult for new projects to get government approval in the region. With graphite demand booming from growth in the lithium-ion battery and downstream EV sectors worldwide, the synthetic graphite market could be driven into further deficit, leading to even higher prices for synthetic graphite and AAM.