Strategic Elements continues to prove up the ability of its Energy Ink cells to generate usable levels of electricity from moisture in the air.

While the technology remains in early development, the company reported in September that a single scaled-up 100cm2 Energy Ink cell generated over 1,400 mAh (milliampere/hour) of electrical charge, well within the range of capacity provided by alkaline AA and AAA batteries.

More recently, Strategic Element’s (ASX:SOR) Energy Ink team investigated the potential of linking multiple cells to increase the total capacity (mAh) that can be generated.

This proved to be a clear success with a bank of six 36cm2 cells successfully generating more than 2.4Ah (2,400mAh) of charge consistently over the 14-day testing period, analogous to an extremely harsh current draw scenario.

New methods mean more power

Current work includes testing new methods of fabricating Energy Ink cells that could significantly improve performance and supersede those used in the Energy Ink pack completed during the September 2022 quarter.

Development has opened a R&D pathway for larger-scale Energy Ink systems either through Energy Ink packs with multiple large cells connected or larger Energy Ink cell sizes. Testing has continued throughout the period and is intended to be completed in the first quarter of 2023.

Additionally, a combined team from the company’s Stealth Technologies and Australian Advanced Materials businesses are working to conduct a demonstration to compare the power consumption required by the leading commercial glucose monitoring patch and the power generated by an Energy Ink cell targeted towards the large, growing multi-billion-dollar Electronic Skin Patch market.

Success will prove Energy Ink’s ability to power a commercial skin patch device and highlight the opportunity to reduce the Energy Ink cell to the smallest size needed to power that device.

Data from these tests will both inform the battery development work and form a data bank that can be used in future discussions with OEM development partners for different products.

Additionally, the first demonstrator from this work is on track to be available before the end of this year.

On the exploration front

Separately, Strategic Elements’ mineral exploration business Maria Resources has been offered $220,000 of co-drilling funding under the Western Australian government’s Exploration Incentive Scheme for the Leviathan REE and rare metals carbonatite target.

Carbonatites hold the potential for large-scale discoveries. For example, WA1 Resources is up ~1300% since announcing a carbonatite discovery with REE and niobium mid-last week in Western Australia. Another carbonatite example is the Mt Weld project, also based in Western Australia, which is one of the world’s richest sources of REEs.

Leviathan was originally lodged over a large gravity anomaly surrounded by a field of up to 100 inferred volcanic pipes reported by previous diamond explorers, who were not aware of the gravity anomaly.

Maria believes the gravity anomaly to be the top of an alkaline intrusion and potentially associated carbonatite surrounded by the field of volcanic pipes, which are associated with carbonatites and other types of intrusions that are highly prospective for rare metals and rare earths.

Results are currently pending from optical microscope analysis of drill cores from the previous drilling around the Leviathan target to identify the potential for an alkaline system (or associated carbonatite) in the area.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Strategic Elements, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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