Infinity Stone Ventures Corp (CSE:GEMS, OTC:GEMSF) has announced the formation of a new wholly-owned subsidiary, AirCarbon Technology Corp, to develop its Rockstone Graphite project near Thunder Bay in Ontario.
The company also told investors it has entered into a partnership with R&D Innovation Inc to use its patent-pending and proprietary air classification separation technology to process samples from the Rockstone Graphite project.
After transferring the project to AirCarbon, Infinity Stone said it plans to pursue a public listing of AirCarbon on a Canadian securities exchange in the coming months. Through the transfer, AirCarbon will become party to the current option agreement for the Rockstone Graphite project and responsible for all further obligations under the option agreement, it added.
"We firmly believe that graphite is being overlooked in the market, considering its critical position in the battery metal supply chain,” Infinity Stone CEO Zayn Kalyan said in a statement.
“The recent announcement by Volkswagen of its subsidiary PowerCo SE, opening its first overseas gigafactory in St. Thomas, Ontario supports the growing demand for domestically mined graphite. Rockstone is strategically positioned to meet this demand given its geographic location near infrastructure and easy shipping routes to the VW new battery plant.”
R&D Innovations partnership
Expanding on the partnership with R&D Innovations, Kalyan commented: "We are excited to be working with the team at R&D Innovation to process samples from Rockstone, a step that we believe has the potential to rapidly increase the development of the project.”
The company noted that R&D Innovations' Air Classification System eliminates the need for flotation, chemicals and drying in the graphite milling process and greatly reduces the capital costs for a traditional graphite mill, adding that it has also been designed to eliminate the need for tailing ponds and greatly lessen the need for significant infrastructure at a mine site.
"I believe that Infinity Stone's Rockstone material has the right geological make-up for a very successful test run of our Air Classification System,” R&D Innovations president Robert Rice said.
“Over the years, we have come to understand where there are specific challenges with certain graphite deposits, and where there is hard rock graphite material that works well with dry air classification methods,” he added.
Following the initial pilot run of R&D Innovation's Air Classification System on Rockstone samples, the company said it intends to engage NEI Corporation Inc. for coin cell testing and full material characterization of the Rockstone material. The testing will cover both traditional floated and chemically treated air-classified material, it said.
More about the Rockstone Graphite project
Infinity Stone noted that the Rockstone Graphite Project is located 45 kilometres west of the seaway port at the City of Thunder Bay in Ontario.
The project has excellent access by logging haul roads that connect to paved/gravel roads with nearby railways and a shipping port. Based upon the reprocessed Versatile Time Domain Electromagnetic (VTEM) survey completed by Sabina Silver Corporation in 2007, it said there are 18 drill-ready electromagnetic targets.
Greencastle's drilling in 2012 consisted of four diamond drillholes (916 metres). Diamond drill hole GC-12-01 intersected a 24-metre interval averaging 0.82% zinc and 0.15% copper within a graphitic argillite unit.
Analysis of the pulps for the 24 metres returned a value of 25% Cg (graphitic carbon) using a LECO analytical procedure.
Rockstone graphite morphology appears to be highly-ordered hexagonal graphite crystallites and crystallite agglomerates, likely formed by hydrothermal activity at a formation temperature of 702 celsius.
Infinity Stone said it is to provide further details on the AirCarbon Technology spin-out structure in the immediate future.
Infinity Stone’s mission is to be a diversified, single-source supplier of the critical energy metals being used in the clean energy revolution, alongside its established Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution portfolio. The company is meeting the demand from battery and wind turbine manufacturers, nuclear and hydrogen energy producers, and energy metals speculators by acquiring 100% interest in critical mineral deposits and occurrences in stable mining-friendly jurisdictions, close to final use destinations in North American manufacturing hubs.
Contact the author at stephen.gunnion@proactiveinvestors.com