US battery producer EaglePicher Technologies LLC is opening a new production facility in a bid to increase its lithium-ion production and expand its product portfolio for defense and aerospace applications.
The new plant in Joplin, Missouri, will produce SiNANOde™, a silicon-nanowire-based anode material for building li-ion cells and batteries providing higher energy densities.
The announcement comes after the company entered into a License Agreement and an Engineering Services Agreement with OneD Material.
The licensed process has enabled the world’s first production of silicon-nanowire material for electrochemical energy storage.
Under the Engineering Services Agreement, OneD Material has begun the transfer of its SiNANOde™ manufacturing process to enable EaglePicher to scale up production and incorporate the anode into new cells and batteries.
The addition of SiNANOde™ raw material is a key component to significantly improving the performance of li-ion cells and batteries for niche applications, said Ron Nowlin, EaglePicher’s VP & GM of Aerospace Systems.
He added: “This agreement allows us to vertically integrate the manufacture of cutting edge, high energy anode raw material that has demonstrated cell performance in the range of 300Wh/kg.
“By insourcing the raw material we can assure the supply stability that is needed for mission critical Defense and Aerospace applications.”
EaglePicher also licensed OneD Material’s intellectual property portfolio, which includes approximately 300 patents and patent applications covering many nanomaterial and process inventions.
Vincent Pluvinage, OneD Material’s CEO, said: “Batteries are complex systems, and EaglePicher is the ideal company to take the lead in matching our anode technology with their own innovations and to bring the most advanced energy storage solutions to market”.