In the space of a year, the company’s stock has grown 670 per cent and was trading this morning at a peak of $2.60, a 66 per cent increase on its level last week.

A big beneficiary is its biggest shareholder and executive director Trevor St Baker. He holds about 60 million shares which have increased in value by more than $50 million in a week. His son, Phillip, owns 14 million shares now worth more than $30 million.

This morning’s rise was around 23 per cent before midday and follows a similar hike earlier this week when the company announced the appointment of Professor Jeff Dahn as chief scientific adviser. Dahn has strong ties to Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company, Tesla, through a research partnership and he is regarded as one of the pioneers of the lithium-ion battery.

Novonix also announced today that its American subsidiary PUREgraphite had won US Federal Government backing through a $US5.5 million grant for its new furnace technology.

The funds will cover about half the cost of the furnace.

Chief executive Chris Burns said the funding demonstrated the commitment of the US Government to support the domestic supply of high-performance battery materials.

“It also highlights the expertise, progress, partners and technology we have assembled at PUREgraphite,” Burns said.

Although Brisbane based, much of Novonix’s operations are in North America where it operates an anode material plant which is being ramped up to produce 2000 tonnes a year of synthetic graphite which is a vital component in electric vehicle batteries.