Ramaco Carbon, a carbon technology business, is working with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to create “made in America” large-scale graphite-making technologies from coal. 

A fossil energy and carbon management program field work proposal supported by Ramaco Carbon and ORNL aims to take a bench-scale ORNL process to the commercial scale in two years. Ramaco will deploy specialized equipment at its iCAM research facility in Wyoming to prepare coal-based feedstocks utilizing coal from its parent firm, metallurgical coal miner Ramaco Resources. Currently, this carbon comes from more expensive petroleum and petrochemical feedstocks.

The US government has declared graphite a “critical requirement” substance for national security due to its role in EV batteries and other vital technologies. Currently, 80% of the graphite supply is produced offshore.

”If it is successful, then the ability to use lower-cost coal as the feedstock to make synthetic graphite could be transformational,” said Randall Atkins, chairman and CEO of Ramaco.

Source: Ramaco Carbon