Rio Tinto Enters Graphene Business

Dear Reader,

Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO), one of the world’s leading mining companies, announced last week that it would be making a multimillion-dollar investment in a completely new kind of rechargeable battery. 

The reason? Rio Tinto wants to convert its substantial fleet of heavy trucks, excavators, and earth-movers away from the lithium-ion standard. 

Lithium batteries may run the world of personal electronics and electric vehicles, but they suffer from a critical design flaw that’s simply not going to get solved with incremental improvements and half measures. 

The Li-ion electrolyte, the liquid matrix through which electrons flow from the anode to the cathode, is that fatal flaw. 

When heat is applied to the electrolyte, which is composed of highly oxygenated organic solvents, the lithium-ion battery becomes an incendiary device. 

Unfortunately for Li-ion users, which now number in the billions, heat and recharging go hand in hand — as you’ve probably observed yourself any time you’ve picked your phone up after charging the battery overnight. 

Thermal runaway, as the process is called, refers to an out-of-control exothermic reaction that takes place in old or damaged lithium-ion batteries.

Yes, Your Phone Can Explode

All lithium-ion batteries hold the potential for such failure. It all depends on how many of the battery’s individual cells have already failed, and how much resistance they produce during the charging process. 

For Rio Tinto, that risk became too high, so now this mining giant has partnered with a small Australian high-tech materials company to develop the world’s most advanced batteries. 

These batteries are a complete departure from the lithium-ion standard — with zero lithium involved. 

The biggest difference is that the cathodes are composed of graphene, and the electrolyte isn’t liquid at all but solid state — meaning no amount of heat will cause swelling or gas precipitation.

Even when heavily damaged, these batteries continue to operate, and they are essentially fireproof. 

But that’s just the beginning. These advanced graphene batteries have a far higher energy storage capacity — up to 3 times more than lithium-ion counterparts. They last longer by a factor of two as well, which means a graphene battery pack like this installed in an EV will easily propel that vehicle a million miles or more before any noticeable performance decay. 

Game-Changing Performance Improvements

And then there’s charge speed… You can forget spending up to an hour at a Level 3 charging station waiting for your battery to hit 80% capacity. 

Graphene batteries charge up to 70 times faster than today’s best lithium products, which means you’ll be able to charge a phone in less than a minute and a car in less time than it takes to fill up a standard gas tank. 

Put this all together and it’s not hard to see why a company like Rio Tinto would want to take the lead in developing a high-performance, almost bulletproof method of storing and delivering power. 

But it’s still not the whole story. 

You see, Rio Tinto is an Anglo-Australian mining company. Its business is finding, extracting, and refining a wide variety of resources — including rare earth elements, a family of metals absolutely crucial to the production of modern electronics. 

For more than 30 years, the Chinese have been quietly building a global rare earth monopoly in anticipation of their political rivals becoming completely addicted to and dependent on this class of elements. 

It All Goes Back to Politics

The Chinese are also the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery producers. 

You see the conflict this creates for a company that’s both a political and an economic rival. 

With graphene that’s produced 100% in-house by Rio’s new partner company, there is absolutely zero Chinese involvement. 

If it wasn’t clear yet, let me remove any ambiguity: The risks of being dependent on the Chinese and the benefits of finding a way to decouple from China are both shared by every Western consumer walking the Earth today. 

This partner corporation is based in Australia and owns the patents to a novel method for producing the best and cheapest graphene the world has ever seen. 

It also trades publicly, on two North American exchanges. 

Here’s the thing, though. Very few investors know about it. This is a relatively small company, valued at just under US$150 million.

In 10 Years… Lithium Could Be the Next Betamax

The technology it holds, however, could easily disrupt the entire lithium-ion sector, which will be worth north of a quarter-trillion dollars by the end of the decade. 

This battery maker is already developing small pouch batteries for smaller-sale consumer applications. With Rio Tinto now in its corner, it will open up the market for massive, industrial-scale power storage solutions. 

Look, the facts are pretty simple here: A $100 billion mining giant thinks that this tiny next-gen battery maker is a good investment. 

Perhaps it knows something you don’t?

Enter here to hear the rest of the story.

Fortune favors the bold,

Alex Koyfman

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