Key Highlights:
- • UK Based Cornish Lithium have joined forces with Australian company SCI for developing a unique trust mark for UK-mined lithium
- • The partnership aims to build a foundation for developing a transparent and accountable lithium supply chain for batteries in the UK
- • It will also address the increasing customer interests in product provenance and ethical sourcing
Provenance Verification Technology
Mineral mining have increasingly contributed to the advancements in technology. Tracing the origins of various minerals used in various components has helped us understand about the technicalities related to minerals. This has further helped us to leverage them to the full extent.
In a recent news, an UK based technology company has partnered with an Australian scientific technology company for developing a transparent and accountable lithium supply chain for batteries in the UK. The partnership will trace the origin of UK-mined lithium-ion batteries.
Unique Trust Mark
An UK-based eco-technology company—Cornish Lithium—altogether with an Australian scientific technology company—Source Certain International (SCI)—will develop a unique ‘trust mark’ for the UK-mined lithium.
According to reports, the trust mark technology developed by the SCI specializes in provenance verification technology. This scientific provenance verification technology can identify the origin of lithium within a battery, down to a specific mine site which is operated by Cornish Lithium.
Salient Features of the Project
The partnership project will contribute to the new strategies of UK concerning the supply of critical minerals such as cobalt and lithium which are required for cleaner technologies, for instance an electric vehicle. The project will also address the increasing customer interests in product provenance and ethical sourcing. Both Cornish Lithium and SCI are striving towards establishing a foundation for developing a transparent and accountable lithium supply chain for batteries in the UK.
The UK is reliant on battery-grade lithium compounds imports in order to manufacture lithium batteries. A large amount of the world’s lithium is produced in South America or Australia, and is further shipped to China for processing into battery-grade lithium chemicals. Currently, there is no commercial battery-grade lithium production in Europe. Cornish Lithium is attempting to address this missing link in the UK’s battery-material supply chain. Moreover, the demand for lithium compounds, used in lithium-ion batteries, is predicted to grow exponentially owing to the increase in electric vehicle production. This provides a head start to the company’s partnership with SCI to develop a lithium trust mark.
Components of the Partnership
The Securing Domestic Lithium Supply Chain for UK (Li4UK) consortium has increased awareness about the critical role of minerals in the UK’s clean growth and future mobility ambitions among local and national government bodies of the vital role. The body is composed of—Cornish Lithium; Wardell Armstrong, an UK-based engineering and mining consultancy, and the Natural History Museum. The group aims to demonstrate the feasibility of producing battery-quality lithium compounds from lithium found in UK rocks and geothermal waters.
During the next stage, SCI plans to implement its scientific provenance verification technology TSW Trace to establish a reference database of all Cornwall-sourced lithium. The samples in the database would then be cross-referenced against lithium in the battery supply chain to verify its UK origin. SCI is confident its technology will provide the appropriate level of precision to help verify the origin and authenticity of lithium mined by Cornish Lithium. This will in turn meet the demands of consumers who are increasingly interested in where items and their components come from, and the impact of their purchase on people and the environment.
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