Altech Chemicals Ltd's Iggy Tan takes high purity alumina to China

Altech Chemicals Ltd's managing director, Iggy Tan, said that the company received strong interest in the company's entry into the high purity alumina (HPA) market at a conference in Shenzhen, China.

Altech’s plan is to offer a finished product range that will include HPA tailored for the synthetic sapphire and lithium-ion battery separator sheet manufacturing sectors, two rapidly growing segments of the HPA market.

The company said that the design of its Malaysian plant incorporates the specialised equipment required for the production of “nano” HPA particles.

The size of HPA nano particles is typically less than 1 micron (1/1000 of 1mm) and is the preferred particle size for the fast growing lithium-ion battery separator sheet-manufacturing sector.

HPA supply squeeze

Tan said that with the forecast rapid increase in demand for HPA, particularly from lithium-ion battery separator manufacturers, combined with supply expansion timeframe limitations, there is a real possibility of a HPA supply squeeze in the short to medium term.

Kaolin resource

Altech recently updated its kaolin resource at the wholly-owned HPA project in Meckering, Western Australia.

The updated Resource measures 11 million tonnes of kaolin clay containing 45% minus 45 micron clay with a brightness of 82.7%.

This resource will feed the proposed HPA plant in Malaysia for over 250 years.