Talga to set-up graphene plant in Germany

UPDATE 1.45pm: Talga Resources will spend $1 million setting up a graphene demonstration plant in Germany.

The plant is expected to produce 100-200 tonnes a year of the carbon material, that is 100 times stronger than steel by weight.

Talga said the proposed plant would be the first in the world to commercially demonstrate true direct ore-to-graphene process technology capable of delivering industrial volumes for customer samples and/or sale.

"This can remove roadblocks of volume and cost on the path to graphene commercialisation and enable end users to accelerate development of their graphene-based products," the company said.

Talga will use ore from its high-grade graphite projects in Sweden for the plant's feedstock.

While the demonstration plant will allow fast tracking of trial product, Talga expects its future full-scale processing to be undertaken closer to its projects in Sweden.

Managing director Mark Thompson said the decision to proceed with a demonstration plant followed Talga's success in moving its high-grade Swedish graphite ores from laboratory to bench-top scale and replicating graphene process results in multiple countries with several parties.

"Pending final design, the new German plant has the potential to be one of the largest graphene production facilities in Europe," he said.

Graphene is a form of carbon consisting of planar sheets which are one atom thick.

The sheets have potential for applications across a variety of hi-tech sectors, as well as an additive to strengthen products such as carbon fibre, cement and aluminium.

Talga shares were up one cent, or 2.44 per cent, to 42 cents at the close.