Epsilon Carbon makes headway into Li-ion battery material biz

Epsilon Carbon, an Indian coal-tar derivatives company is diversifying into the battery material business to develop and manufacture high-performance and quality carbon products for anode components of Lithium-ion Batteries (LiB).

The announcement made on Monday, August 24, confirmed that the materials business will be housed under a new subsidiary, Epsilon Advanced Materials, which Epsilon hopes to make a preferred supplier of synthetic graphite material to cell manufacturers and energy storage device companies in India and across the globe.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront the importance of India’s economic recovery based on principles of Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India)," said Vikram Handa, Managing Director of Epsilon Carbon.

"To make India self-reliant in e-mobility, India is aiming towards establishing manufacturing leadership in the EV space and Epsilon Advanced Material’s manufacturing leadership in graphite anodes will make India self-sufficient for a key raw material for LiB cells.”

According to the company's official statement, graphite anodes makeup of 25 percent volume of LiB cells and are the highest single material in cell chemistry. Historically, China has been supplying more than 80 percent of the global demand for graphite anodes to the global LiB supply chain. 

Epsilon will be setting up a manufacturing facility in the Ballari region of Karnataka to produce 5000 tonnes anode material for Li-ion batteries annually. The company plans to triple this unit capacity to 15,000 tonnes in 2021, and further expand, to 50,000 tonnes per annum by 2025. 

Epsilon will be investing INR 500 crore over the next five years to meet the capacity target of this unit.

In addition to the anode material manufacturing facility, Epsilon Advanced Materials has set-up a target-oriented research and development laboratory to cover a complete array of carbon material testing as well as cell and pouch lithium battery cell testing to improve the quality of the material further by continuous development.