Australian battery materials company Sicona Battery Technologies has announced its expansion into the US battery component market with the development of its first commercial production facilities in the south-eastern United States.
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Having recently completed front-end engineering design studies with global engineering and construction firm Bechtel, Sicona is moving forward with the phased development of a 6,700 tonne per annum (tpa) silicon-carbon anode materials production plant.
This development will make Sicona the largest producer of silicon-carbon anode materials in the United States, surpassing the approximately 5,800 tpa total silicon-carbon plants under construction and development in the north-western United States.
By the early 2030s, Sicona plans to ultimately expand its US production to a total output of 26,500tpa.
Leveraging its extensive intellectual property portfolio Sicona produces Silicon-Carbon (Sicona SiCx) anode materials that supercharge Lithium-ion batteries delivering a 20%-plus increase in energy density over conventional graphite-only Lithium-ion battery cells and reducing charge times by more than 40%.
Furthermore, Sicona’s technology does not rely on expensive, dangerous, bottlenecked or emissions intensive supply chains such as silane gas. This enables Sicona’s customers to access unmatched prices and scale for maximum positive impacts of a “drop-in” material without incurring significant costs and disruptive reengineering in their battery production facilities.
Utilising a top-down process, Sicona has cracked highly efficient mechanical silicon metal reduction to create uniform nanoparticles. Further treatment in specialised carbon coating processes create the unique material qualities that customers demand.
Sicona co-founder Christiaan Jordaan said, “We believe by going mass scale with our technology we can have maximum impact on increasing the adoption of electric vehicles. This is because our product has a real impact on the charge time of an electric vehicle or how far you can drive your EV before recharging, which are two major factors holding people back from buying an EV.
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“We are proud to be an Australian company leading the charge on the global stage and working with our valued partners like Bechtel to establish our first production facilities in the United States.”
