One of the fun things about the rare metals industry is that we can speak about them from both sides of our mouths… in mega terms like mining, financing, global trade, and geo-politics, and in much smaller terms, like nantechnologies, lighter, faster, and energy efficiency gains . Both dimensions hold their own intrigue and ‘power’ when one speaks about lithium (... and a thousand pardons for the playing off the word ‘power’)

First, in mega terms. the world's largest lithium producer, Austrailia's Talison Lithium Ltd, began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Friday, Sept 24th , raising $40-million to increase production of the lithium, the key ingredient to future battery technology.

The money raised will apparently go toward nearly doubling production at Talison's Greenbushes mineral lithium mining operation in Australia. It will also complete the Company's merger with Vancouver-based Salares Lithium Inc (SLI). SLI has exploration assets in Chile, a series of salt-lake beds from which lithium might be extracted relatively cheaply.The company says it will step up exploration at the Salares 7 project in Chile.

As noted by Financial Post contributor Tim Shufelt, the additional funds allows the combined entity to respond to burgeoning demand for lithium, particularly in China. While demand contracted in the rest of the world last year, China's lithium market grew by about 10% and accelerating quite dramatically.

Apparently Talison shipped most of its 2009 product to China, supplying 75% of the country's demand, and providing the Australian miner with a direct link to the battery market. As Shufelt further notes “China is leading the charge in what could prove to be a source of considerable demand for the light metal in the near future -- electric vehicles. Currently, electric vehicles drive only a negligible portion of the lithium industry.”

Now -- to the small, fast energy efficient and fascinating dimension of rare metals. Earlier last week, Boonsri Dickenson, a science journalist, blogger, and producer, reported (Sept 20th) that one of the biggest concerns to any manufacturer portable devices is 'battery life'. The batteries need to thin, lightweight and long lasting. Well, apparently Stanford University scientists have risen to the challenge having possibly found the game changers -- a ‘paper-thin lithium-ion rechargeable battery’. The Stanford team has essentially managed to take a regular sheet of paper, coated both sides with a layer of carbon nanotubes and then a thin layer of lithium compound, and turned it into a functioning, rechargeable battery. The film of the Li-ion could act as the battery electrode and the nanotube films would send currents through the device.

When tested, these thin, flexible batteries apparently managed to outperform other super-thin power sources, with the prototypes capable of functioning for at least 300 recharges without problem. As you can imagine, bendable batteries and displays would make for a new generation of roll up our electronics.

Making the batteries paper-thin isn’t the only way to improve conventional Li-ion batteries, at least based on some recent work being done at MIT. MIT researchers recently announced that it has developed a genetically engineered virus ( M13 bacteriophage) to act as the electrodes of Li-ion batteries? Not to bore you, but as reported recently by Melissa Mahony, a contributing editor (energy) to smartplanet.com, MIT was the first to genetically engineer viruses for use as templates for the electrodes of lithium-ion batteries. M13 is a common virus that infects bacteria. Coated with a protein (pVIII) that is easy to genetically and chemically manipulate, the viruses bind to carbon nanotubes and assemble into a network through which electrons can pass.

As Mahoney also noted (Aug 24th), the MIT Team ultimately see rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that can be woven into clothing. According to the leader of the team at MIT, Dr. Mark Allen, “the virus-enabled batteries would have the ability to conform to almost any shape or size. Flexible and lightweight, the future batteries could serve soldiers and civilians. Typical soldiers have to carry several pounds of batteries. But if you could turn their clothing into a battery pack, they could drop a lot of weight. The same could be true for frequent business travelers ― the road warriors ― who lug around batteries and separate rechargers for laptop computers, cell phones, and other devices.”

Dr. Allen also aksed and answered the following question... Would adorning fabric batteries become unfashionably hot, or perhaps flammable? … Not likely, or at least, less likely than current lithium-ion batteries, which produce more heat.

Li-ion batteries are clearly expected to be the next generation energy storage devices that power plug-in hybrid cars and personal gadgets. In this regards… we’ll need the large and solid mining sector and the nimble and flexible applications innovators. So what if rare metas are two-faced -- they continue to hold us in good stead.

If you would care to read more on the Talison’s recent listing or the excitibg developments on the Battery development from, please just clisck on
http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/science-scope/rechargeable-li-ion-batteries-that-are-paper-thin/4251/ or
http://www.financialpost.com/listing+helps+lithium+giant+raise+output+meet+demand/3572071/story.html#ixzz10Y1kcdlbor http://www.smartplanet.com/business/blog/intelligent-energy/charge-outfitting-the-military-with-clothing-that-serves-as-a-battery-pack/2432/