C-Batt and Semplastics have begun an 18-month, $1.25 million US Department of Energy project to scale production of C-Batt’s Obsidia lithium-ion battery anode material.
The programme will move Obsidia from batch production towards semi-continuous manufacturing, produce the material in larger quantities and validate its performance in prototype full pouch cells.
The material combines silicon oxycarbide chemistry with domestically available carbon feedstocks, including cleaned waste coal fines. C-Batt is positioning the material as an American-made alternative to imported battery-grade graphite.
The project is intended to demonstrate that the material can be manufactured consistently and economically at commercially useful volumes. It will include material qualification and optimisation, manufacturing feasibility studies, a life-cycle assessment and a techno-economic analysis comparing the process with imported natural graphite.
Obsidia does not require complex manufacturing stages
Many silicon-rich anode materials require chemical vapour deposition, nanoscale structures or other complex manufacturing stages. C-Batt said Obsidia could instead be produced through chemical mixing and thermal processing using equipment based on established industrial technologies.
The company expects the simpler process to reduce factory complexity, capital requirements and the time needed to scale production. The material has also been designed for use with conventional lithium-ion electrode manufacturing processes.
Josh McConkey, director of commercialisation at C-Batt, said: “Battery companies do not just need promising chemistry. They need a material they can buy in volume and run through practical manufacturing. This project begins the work of proving that Obsidia can meet these demands while strengthening the American battery-material supply chain.”
Semplastics will lead development of the silicon oxycarbide resin and manufacturing scale-up. C-Batt will be responsible for the anode material’s formulation, qualification and battery cell validation.
Consol Innovations will support the selection of domestic feedstocks, scale-up of the pyrolysis process and the project’s techno-economic and life-cycle assessments.
C-Batt said its previous work to simplify the synthesis process should allow the Obsidia scale-up programme to proceed rapidly.
