| Project Detail |
The booming need for batteries and higher storage capacities are well identified challenges. Increase production capacities
can meet the higher demand but improved storage capacities require innovation and new battery materials. The critical
application for better capacities is the automotive electric vehicles market for which the vehicle range is a key drag on market
growth.
NANO solution is to supply a new material for batteries anodes. This high-quality material is already available for niche
market (portable electronics) and can be used to triple anodes batteries capacities. To address automotive mass market, this
product has also to be cheap and available at large scale, both of which are the main object of this project. This will be done
by increasing NANO production capacity per reactor form 2 kg/h to 8 kg/h.
NANOMAKERS is a French R&D company, spin-off from CEA which is selling Si and SiC nanoparticles made by laser
pyrolysis, a patented technology developed at CEA, since 2011 with an actual production capacity of 10T/year.
In 2012, the company patented a new product: carbon coated silicon (SiOC) as anode active material for Li-ion batteries.
This material triple the anodes capacity and will partly replace the critical raw material currently used in batteries:
Natural graphite. With a compound annual growth rate of around 20%, Li-ion battery market for silicon nanoparticles is estimated at
around 380 tons in 2020 up to 2300 tons in 2025.
This growth will be first driven by portable electronics and then by automotive industry where battery price must be
competitive. Nanomakers has a long experience and feed-back form customers that helped optimizing NANO product (size,
coating, …). Since 2013, NANO has been providing most of the battery actors, especially in Asia through its distributor in
Japan. So, Nanomakers want to set up DEBIMAX project to meet the large capacity demand and reduces the production
costs for portable electronics and automotive industry. |
