Letter of Intent between Beyonder AS and Kuniko

Batteries made from sawdust? With Kuniko’s Zero Carbon copper?

That’s the intent of today’s announcement from our battery metals Investment, Kuniko (ASX:KNI).

A Letter of Intent (LOI) has been signed between KNI and Beyonder, a Norwegian battery technology company.

Over a 3-year period, KNI and Beyonder will consider a potential offtake for KNI’s copper, use of Beyonder’s battery tech in KNI’s exploration activities, work on mining and processing innovations and other efforts to ensure zero-emissions in the battery supply chain.

Beyonder is developing a hybrid energy-storage technology called a Lithium-ion capacitor that uses sustainable materials. In particular, sawdust:

The sawdust is converted into “super-activated carbon” for the capacitor’s positive electrode.

Silicon derived from sand is used for the negative electrode.

A profile of the company notes that:

‘The use of a wood-derived activated carbon cathode enables the LiC to operate at higher specific power, with greater durability compared to Li-ion batteries. The LiC is non-flammable, and batteries with LiC cells can be fully charged in two minutes and recharged up to 100,000 times.’

Beyonder is aiming to have its first full-scale plant operating in Norway in 2023, with the ability to produce 5 million battery cells a year.

As investors, we see KNI’s collaboration with Beyonder as a potentially fruitful arrangement down the track.

What’s next for KNI?

For now though, we’re most interested in KNI’s upcoming cobalt drilling campaign which is slated to begin 2 May.

Here is why we invested in KNI and what we expect them to achieve in 2022 - KNI Investment Memo.