LONDON (From news release) - Finnish-Swedish forestry firm Stora Enso, battery producer Amperex Technology Ltd (ATL) and other parties have invested $18 million in start-up CarbonScape to commercialise bio-graphite for use in batteries, they said on Tuesday.

New Zealand-based CarbonScape has patented a process to use forestry industry by-products such as wood chips to make graphite, which can account for up to half of the weight of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs) and

The investment will be used to further develop plans to build production facilities in Europe and the United States, a statement said.

"This investment represents a strong statement of support for sustainable sourcing of battery materials for global decarbonisation," said CarbonScape CEO Ivan Williams.

Currently graphite for the anodes of batteries are sourced from mined natural graphite or synthetic graphite produced from petroleum products.

CarbonScape says its bio-graphite has a carbon negative footprint, saving up to 30 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per tonne of material compared to synthetic or mined graphite.

The material can also be produced close to battery factories, helping to cut down on CO2 emissions compared to mined graphite transported from distant locations, the statement said.

By using less than 5% of forestry by-products generated each year in Europe and North America, CarbonScape said its process could produce enough bio-graphite to meet half the total global projected graphite demand for EV and grid-scale batteries by 2030.