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Graphite in hours, at half the heat.

US Carbon catalytically cracks carbon into crystalline graphite, using technology licensed from the National Energy Technology Laboratory and refined for scale.

Two ways to make graphite today. Both are outdated.

Mining and conventional graphite synthesis are mature technologies with little room left to improve, and both depend on supply chains outside the United States.

Mined natural graphite

  • Graphite occurs at roughly 0.5–1% in ore-bearing rock, so most of what is mined is not graphite.
  • Multi-stage chemical purification follows, losing up to 70% of the graphite in these steps.
  • Mined graphite is very expensive to purify, and China controls 90% of purification capacity.

Synthetic graphite, the Acheson process

  • A coke and tar blend is held at about 3,000 °C for days to weeks.
  • Only a few feedstocks graphitize this way, and those feedstocks are in limited supply.
  • Long hold times and repeated bake cycles make the plant expensive; energy consumption is massive, about half the production cost.

Trade protection and subsidy have been the main way North American producers could compete. Neither production route offers a durable, low-cost path to American graphite security.

Catalysis changes the arithmetic.

  1. 50%

    Lower temperature

    Catalytic graphitization runs at temperatures conventional furnaces can manage, making the factory cost much less.

  2. 20×

    Faster

    A 20× faster process transforms the cost of capital: a much smaller factory makes the same quantity of graphite.

  3. $15/ton

    Domestic feedstock

    Powder River Basin coal, very low cost and mined next door in Wyoming. America’s energy reserves become its critical material reserves.

From coal to anode‑grade graphite.

Five steps, all of them conventional unit operations. The catalyst and the acid are recycled, reducing cost and waste.

  1. 01

    Carbon feedstock

    Powder River Basin coal arrives at the Wyoming Innovation Center. The proprietary catalyst is sourced domestically, and 99% of it is recycled in the process.

  2. 02

    Pyrolysis and sizing

    The coal is charred to drive off volatiles, creating a high-carbon precursor.

  3. 03

    Catalyst blending

    The catalyst is blended with the char powder and loaded into the graphitization furnace.

  4. 04

    Graphitization

    Three hours at 1,500 °C in a conventional, commercially available furnace yields 95% graphitization.

    1,500 °C · 3 hours
  5. 05

    Purification and finishing

    The iron catalyst is removed with acid and mechanical treatment. The graphite is sized and sorted; catalyst and acid are recycled.

Crystallinity that matches commercial graphite.

Third-party validation at kilogram scale confirms the material meets synthetic graphite quality specifications. Samples are available now for testing and qualification.

Degree of graphitization, against commercial battery-grade graphite (%)
  • Commercial natural graphite92%
  • Commercial synthetic graphite94%
  • US Carbon graphite95%

Scale runs from 80% to 100%, where the comparison sits. Commercial samples measured alongside US Carbon material; suppliers anonymised. Source: US Carbon technical briefing.

Why it scales quickly.

Three reasons the road from kilogram batches to production is a short one.

Request samples or a briefing

  • The same process at every size

    It is a bulk thermal process. Gram-scale and kilogram-scale runs behave the same way, so scale-up does not change the chemistry.

  • Equipment you can buy

    Charring, blending and graphitizing all use off-the-shelf industrial equipment, because the temperatures are ordinary ones.

  • Batch or continuous

    The process runs either way, depending on the volume a customer needs.