Best of the week — the five most popular stories among readers, August 11 – August 15, 2025

What were the five biggest stories of the week? Here’s what visitors to @AuManufacturing were reading.

5) 11 grants awarded under Supply Chain Uplift Program

Recipients of grants under Round 5 of the state government’s Supply Chain Uplift Program have been announced, with approximately $800,000 awarded to 11 Victorian businesses.

State manufacturing minister Colin Brooks visited Hanwha Defence Australia’s Armoured Vehicle Centre of Excellence (H-ACE) at Avalon Airport on Monday to announce grants to Blueroom Simulations, EnyGy, Lunar Outpost, R&I Instrument & Gear Co., Ribcraft Marine, Ronson Gears, Skills Leap Australia, Stahl Metall, Total Precision, TRJ Engineering and Vokke.

4) Kongsberg Defence Australia awarded $80 million in new export contracts

Kongsberg Defence Australia (KDAu) has secured two export deals totalling $80 million and covering launcher systems and command and control consoles, which will all be assembled using “100 per cent Australian made components and subsystems”.

According to a statement from Defence on Thursday, KDAu secured a $50 million order for Australian-made Naval Strike Missile (NSM) Launcher Systems to be exported to Spain and Denmark. A further $30 million contract for consoles to be exported to Poland is KDAu’s first export as part of the Commonwealth’s Global Supply Chain Program.

3) Federal government awards Iondrive $3.9 million grant to help pilot plant build

Iondrive has been awarded a grant of up to $3.9 million through the federal government’s Industry Growth Program, which will support battery metal extraction and potentially scale up “urban mining” work under development using the company’s solvent-based process.

According to an ASX statement from Iondrive on Tuesday, the grant covers half of eligible pilot plant construction and operational costs, with the plant to initially focus on salvaging critical minerals from lithium-ion battery black mass. (Black mass is a shiny, metallic pile of shredded, end-of-life battery cathodes and anodes.)

2) Energy Renaissance, Australia’s first lithium battery manufacturer, goes into administration

Lithium ion battery storage company Energy Renaissance, which recently marked a decade anniversary, has apparently collapsed.

Few details are available, but an ASIC notice dated August 13 states that Stewart William Free and Bradd William Morelli have been appointed as administrators to ER Industrial Pty Ltd, formerly trading as Energy Renaissance.

1) NSW plastic recycling projects awarded $11 million in grants

Two plastic recycling projects in NSW have received grants to increase plastic recycling capacity, with iQRenew awarded $9.1 million for an infrastructure upgrade at its Kundle Kundle plant, and Tamworth Regional Council awarded $1.9 million for a new facility.

According to a joint statement from the NSW and federal environment ministers, Penny Sharpe and Murray Watt, the two projects will increase recycling capacity of hard-to-recycle plastics by over 17,000 tonnes annually.

iQRenew will invest in site infrastructure, including the upgrade of an existing sorting line and installing a new processing line, “allowing the site to produce resin suitable for use in various packaging applications as well as remanufacturing it into a diverse range of products.”

Picture: credit Grendelkhan (CC BY-SA 4.0)