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Rain Industries said its German arm has launched a new three-year research programme worth €1.7 million, backed by funding from the German government.
Rain Industries is a global manufacturer operating across carbon products, advanced materials and cement. It converts byproducts from oil refining and steelmaking into high-value raw materials used by industries such as aluminium and steel.
The deets: the programme is called USE-G, short for Environmentally Friendly and Safe Graphite Extraction for Europe’s Battery Industry.
It also brings together four key partners based in Germany, each contributing specialised expertise, from supplying natural graphite to battery testing and recycling to advance sustainable graphite processing.
The project aims to first test natural and recycled graphite separately. It will then see if they can be combined to make battery materials for commercial use.
Importance: the initiative serves two goals at once. It aims to reduce Europe’s reliance on China, currently the largest exporter of graphite to the region. At the same time, it also helps Germany develop cleaner, more sustainable graphite processing technologies.
