US battery materials developer Ten-Nine Technologies has appointed Shanghai Jiaohang Trading as its distributor in China as it seeks customers for its Tenix cathode additive.
Jiaohang will provide local commercial and technical support to battery manufacturers, cathode active material producers and vehicle manufacturers evaluating the additive.
The companies said the work would include customer trials, pilot programmes, product qualification and commercial deployment. Financial terms and sales targets were not disclosed.
Tenix is a powder additive mixed directly into cathode active material during manufacturing. Ten-Nine recommends a loading of 0.5–2% of the cathode’s weight and says manufacturers can use the material without installing new equipment or redesigning their cells.
The company claims the nano-scale material suppresses chemical degradation in the cathode, helping cells retain capacity and limiting the increase in resistance and heat generation as they age.
Guillaume de Forton, director of international business development at Ten-Nine Technologies, said the distribution agreement would make it easier for Chinese manufacturers to evaluate the material while receiving local technical support.
“Through our partnership with Jiaohang, we’re making it easier for battery manufacturers to evaluate and adopt Tenix,” he said.
Jiaohang is a subsidiary of Changshu Wealthy Science and Technology
Jiaohang is a wholly owned subsidiary of Changshu Wealthy Science and Technology, a supplier of anode binders used with lithium iron phosphate and nickel cobalt manganese electrodes. Its products are also used in battery separators and carbon nanotube manufacturing.
Ten-Nine said Wealthy holds more than 40% of the global market for lithium-ion battery anode binders and more than 70% of the Chinese market. The company did not provide an independent source for those figures.
Wang Shen, general manager of Jiaohang, said the distributor would combine its technical capabilities with Wealthy’s existing battery-industry relationships to introduce Tenix to customers across China.
Ten-Nine reports that third-party testing of Tenix in 21700-format NMC811 cells produced more than 75% additional charge-discharge cycles, alongside a 10% reduction in internal resistance and approximately 40% less temperature rise during cycling.
It has projected that the cycle-life improvement could extend the useful driving life of a typical electric vehicle battery from 150,000 miles to more than 265,000 miles and reduce lifetime cost per kilowatt-hour by about 40%.
The announcement did not identify the testing organisation or include the underlying test protocol and results.
Ten-Nine is targeting automotive, stationary energy storage, consumer electronics, defence and data-centre applications. The company has previously said it has capacity to manufacture 100 tonnes of Tenix annually at its production operation in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Photo: Ten-Nine Technologies engineers operate pilot-scale production equipment at the company’s Tulsa, Oklahoma facility
Credit: Ten-Nine Technologies
