Dan Blondal, CEO and founder of Nano One [TSX: NANO], the Canadian-listed battery materials specialist, has said his company’s technology has a vital role to play as governments and regulators lean harder on producers in key areas like sodium sulphate permitting and water usage.
The issue is one that is already confronting many major businesses like OEMs as they seek to implement cost effective and environmentally viable battery materials supply chains.
Nano One Materials Corp is a clean technology company with a patented, scalable and low carbon intensity industrial process for the low-cost production of high-performance lithium-ion battery cathode materials. It has strategic collaborations and partnerships, including automotive OEMs and strategic industry supply chain companies like Sumitomo Metal Mining, BASF, Umicore and Rio Tinto.
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Among Nano One’s most recent tie-ups is its deal with energy and chemicals resources giant Worley. The latter is focusing more heavily on sustainable energy sources. The two companies are collaborating on places to make Nano One’s technology far more widely available. “We recognise the need for more battery materials emerging around the world…we moved early to become the partner of choice,” said Laura Leonard, Group President for Technology Solutions at Worley.
The company brings to the table ‘bench strength’ in terms of designing and modularising plants that allows Nano One’s technology to reach many other parts of the world. It is a proven, ‘design one and build many’, approach that has worked well for Worley in other areas.
The strategic partnership harnesses Nano One’s disruptive technology and supply chain partners, and Worley’s industry-leading experience with engineering, procurement, vendors, and construction, to accelerate the commercialisation, global deployment, and economies of scale for advanced CAM manufacturing solutions.
“By eliminating waste treatment, we can avoid costly site-specific custom engineering while enabling low-cost, easier-to-permit, modular plants for a wide range of industrial sites,” said Blondal. “We are collaborating with Worley’s experts to develop a standardized engineering design package. This package will be jointly marketed to facilitate faster decision-making and deployment of One-Pot enabled cathode production plants—starting with LFP—in key jurisdictions worldwide.”
Battery supply chain issues have not gone away
The issues facing many elements of the battery supply chain are pressing. Recent private sector and government reports highlight the growing significance of LFP CAM in the battery material market for stationary energy storage systems (ESS) and electric vehicles (EV). This aligns with Nano One’s strategic focus on LFP as a key growth area.
The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) recently published Global Critical Minerals Outlook noted the resurgence of LFP per its safety and cost-effectiveness compared to nickel-based chemistries. And the government of Canada, through Natural Resources Canada, has updated its Critical Minerals List to include high-purity iron and phosphorus–both essential elements for LFP.
Just to hit current targets for net zero in 2050 would require a huge scale up in CAM that Blondal says is not practical without the application of sustainable technology like that patented by Nano One. “The key is to pick the sources of materials in a form that does not create environmental issues, and that creates disruptions in the supply chain.”
It certainly does not seem as if the EV boom is about to go away, with many mainstream vehicle manufacturers now moving aggressively into the space.
