PALO ALTO, Calif. – OneD Battery Sciences, leaders in electric vehicle (EV) battery technology, announced it has begun construction of its first pilot plants in Moses Lake, WA. The plants will enable each EV maker to customize and optimize silicon-graphite anodes for use in their upcoming advanced lithium-ion EV batteries using OneD’s patented SINANODE technology process.
The plants follow a significant industry milestone by OneD. Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder, Dr. Yimin Zhu, successfully led his team to brake the cost barrier in attaching greater quantities of silicon into EV batteries – at a cost far below industry expectations. Now, the energy storage capacity of SINANODE’s silicon nanowires is so efficient that cell cost per kilowatt hour actually declines as silicon content and energy density increase.
“Each SINANODE pilot uses one CVD machine which will produce up to 340 MWh per year at a variable cost of about $1.20/kWh,” notes Andrew Leyland, Head of Strategic Advisory at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. “This makes OneD’s process both eminently scalable, and also one of the lowest cost silicon solutions we’ve seen.”
The facilities provides Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) dedicated space to create differentiated anodes using the SINANODE STEP, a truly drop-in process, disrupting neither the existing graphite supplier (natural or synthetic) nor the coating method (wet slurry or dry electrode coating).
Dr. Zhu’s technology team’s innovations deliver more silicon energy storage within EV cells’ anodes without the typical complexities and drawbacks that come with silicon-oxide particle additives (currently in a few EV models). The unique shape and pliancy of SINANODE nanowires, that are fused and grown directly on the graphite, simplify the entire process – solving issues of uniform silicon distribution and capacity retention. SINANODE also eliminates the use of inactive materials that add weight – rather than energy storage capacity.
“Many in the auto and battery industries have perceived silicon nanowires to be too expensive for the mass production of EV batteries. It’s time to recalibrate the conversation and demonstrate the impact this technology is making today in delivering better EV batteries to be on the road by 2025,” said Fabrice Hudry, OneD’s Chief Commercial Officer. “Our Pilot Plants in Moses Lake – along with our suppliers and partners – are just the practical next step in delivering on our mission to advance the EV battery with silicon nanowires.”
Each building of the pilot facility will be equipped to deliver the end-to-end processing of commercial graphite powders. Using inexpensive precursors, the plant will have the capacity to deliver pre-production annual capacity of batteries for up to 3,400 EVs per CVD machine.
OneD unveiled SINANODE earlier this year, a manufacturing technology which seamlessly integrates into existing manufacturing processes to fuse silicon nanowires onto commercial graphite powders, tripling the energy density of the anode while halving its cost per kWh. The higher energy density increases battery range while nanowires shorten charging time, enabling OEMs to design and produce electric vehicles that answer the booming market demand for better batteries.
