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Albemarle (NYSE:ALB) says it opened its Battery Materials Innovation Center at its Kings Mountain, N.C., site in support of its lithium hydroxide, lithium carbonate and advanced energy storage materials growth platforms.
As an example, the new lab will use cellphone-sized custom samples to test how well a lithium-concoction will work with new car models, a process that currently takes months and happens off-site at manufacturers.
The lab will be an accelerator for what was "an incredibly slow process and was really arms-length," Merfeld says.
The lab also will create a razor-thin form of lithium that will make batteries cheaper and more powerful; the foil measures just 20 microns, or about a fifth of a human hair, and the company says it may achieve thicknesses of 3-5 microns in the future.
Albemarle's long-term promise is very good, but current valuations imply the lithium boom already is priced in, The Value Investor writes in an analysis posted recently on Seeking Alpha.