Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Silicon Anodes

0:00Transcript

0:00anode production. So we offer the equipment. We don't do that all by ourselves. So we work with existing PCVD to vendors, but our core technology we will supply. That is what we call the plasma core technologies, all components related to the plasma. And there we have a more capital light business model where we offer the components. We have a royalty model and we provide services like commissioning and operations upgrades and a little bit of data services. I understand. But the timeline I wanted more about commercialization. Yeah. So we are starting next year in the first design in projects for smaller applications, like early adopting applications. And also for that, we are building this industrial tool. So it's not just demonstrating that you can do this at an industrial level. It's also producing the anode foil that will be used with that. And we think that that machine is currently being designed, will be ready and available in 2023. So that is when our true revenue will start. And that tool will have a capacity of about 35 megawatt hour per year. And depending on the demand, of course, we try to build our books a little bit here. We can expand that into a larger plan. So we're already talking with venture capitalists and European investment bank on a larger production facility. We just closed the financing round of 22 million to get us there for the next two years. And we're growing our organization from about 30 now to 80 people in the next two years.

2:0822 million euros, yes? Or dollars? 22 million euros and that was first round or that was second or third round? We call it a series A. So how much money total you raised? 22 million? Yeah. So our last round was 22 million. The company as a whole, I think about 30 million went into the company, including the 22 million. And company exists for five years, yes? Yeah. Yeah. Can you help me a little bit to translate those 17 kilowatt, 17 dollars per kilowatt hour? How much it is per kilogram at about? Roughly the number. You cannot, so this is an integrated cost per kilowatt hour. So we're not in the kilogram business because we're not in active material, right? With plasma. So I cannot translate it into kilos. No, no, no problem. No problem. Yeah. But you know, we're talking to the industry and at 17 euros per kilowatt hour, we're pretty cost competitive. Also take into account the energy density that comes along with it, right? It's so easy. Yeah.

3:28I'm very familiar with these materials for the industry because like everybody knows here, I'm focused, my firm is an investment firm, private equity investment firm in this space. Yeah. And particularly I focus on the materials and my focus from materials is on the anode. Yeah. So I'm very familiar with the graphite and silicon. That's why I'm asking you specific questions. Great. But we should talk, Christian, we should talk. Are you going to raise another round or not? Yeah. Most likely, I think in a year from now, we will do another round. Yes. So given the interest also from strategic investors. Yeah. So happy to further discuss this offline, Milos. Yeah, obviously. That's what I wanted to say. Offline, obviously, you can contact me. Great. Great. I would give opportunity to ask somebody else questions, but if not, I can ask more questions or we can discuss. Hey, Kateri, maybe. Maybe we can discuss if nobody's asking the question. So what is your column or column book, column book, column book, column book, column book, efficiency, efficiency, what you can achieve.

4:48How about 99.95%? But that's not a super linear trend, right? There is more capacity fade at the end. So we're around 200 cycles and at 80% end of life. Yeah. Do you also apply pressure to your silicon or you don't apply pressure? Yeah, that's a good point. So, you know, some of these technologies also in solid-state batteries, they demonstrate very interesting battery performance, but then at a very high temperature or with huge pressure. So our battery performance is just at 25 degrees Celsius. And we apply a little bit of pressure, but not a whole lot. So we typically make pouches and we have clamps, like these paper clamps, right? That you have to, you know, get a couple of A4s together. So that's all. So we don't apply huge pressure. And in your facility, what kind of facility do you have? You have a facility, a pilot plant for the for the product, for the anode production, anode coating, not coating, chemical vapor deposition.

6:10Yeah. And you have the, do you have, I understand you have battery facilities, yes? Yeah. So laboratory battery facility. Yep. Yes. You are able to produce pouch cells. Exactly. And then you have some characterization facility. Is that right? Yeah. So you got it. So in Eindhoven, you know, maybe shed a little bit more light on that. It's not a coincidence that we are located in Eindhoven with our plasma deposition, because in Eindhoven, there's a pretty interesting high tech ecosystem where there's a lot of thin film expertise. So there are companies like Philips, NXP, ASML, which is a machine builder for chip production, state of the art chip production and a whole supply chain around it. So there's actually quite a lot of expertise on plasma for PV and Semicon. And that's also why I think we can attract a lot of talent that has experience in that. And we're trying to apply that, of course, to the, to the battery field. So in Eindhoven, we have two tools.

7:28So one was the tool that was originally developed for these thin film applications. So we're using that for R and D. And then we have this production tool with 10 plasma steps where we can make rolls. And then we're using the anodes to make our own cells, but we're also doing sampling, right? We're not just shouting or producing white papers. Clients all over the world pay us to do the sampling projects. And then we ship the sheets, the anode sheets, and then make cells out of it. And then fortunately enough, quite a lot of them have been able to, to replicate our battery performance. So that makes them happy customers. And then we're moving on to the second stage, which is these proof of concept projects in which we're doing joint R and D. We get access to the best cathode materials and looking at various electrolytes. That's kind of the stage we are in right now. I understand. And when, but obviously your, uh, uh, silicon swells, uh, uh, how, how much it swells and how much it stays after the, uh, after the radiation, deletiation, how much it stays, uh, swells.

8:48So you said it's a 10 microns, uh, uh, uh, uh, feel me as. And, uh, so after you, after you, uh, charge it, how, how many microns it is? It is growing to how many microns. It depends a little bit on the condition. So it depends on the state of charge, voltage windows, uh, a number of factors. But typically it's not more than eight microns, uh, in addition. Eight microns in addition. Yeah. And then when you discharge it, it goes back to what? Back to 10 microns? Yeah. Back to 10. Or 12? Yeah. Back to 10. No, back to 10. Yeah. Yeah. That's the interesting part of it, right? The amorphous for silicon is quite, uh, expands and contracts quite elastically. So if you look at the voltage curves, right, it is very linear, uh, correlation with these voltage curves. And back to energy density, what you can achieve. So yeah, we, we, we achieved 1350 watt hours a liter last year. We're now around 1400.

10:01Uh, but, but mind you, that is with NMC 622. So we do believe we can get a little bit, uh, higher. We're using 811. Uh, but how many watt hours per kilogram? Um, so the, the energy density in the graphometric energy density is also good, but it's not as dramatic as it is in volumetric. And that's because we are reducing the active layer. Uh, but we're not reducing the copper and the copper, uh, is, is more, is heavier than the silicon, right? So the graphometric energy density at stack level is around 380, uh, watt hours a kilogram. So with further optimization, we think we can go to 400 watt hours a kilogram. But that's very good for me. Uh, 380 for, uh, uh, watt hours per kilogram is not bad. Yeah. No, thank you. No, because, uh, uh, given all the limitations, uh, which they are there, in the other parts of the battery, it's still, you are using six to, uh, an MC 622 you said.

11:12So, um, 380, it's a relatively good way. The second six. Yeah. Well, uh, uh, how much gain it is basically comparing to, uh, to if your, uh, be. It depends a little bit. It depends a little bit where you, where you put the benchmark graphite, but we say volumetric, we have a 70, so seven, zero percent improvement in volumetric energy density. And in, uh, And graphometric it's around 50%. 50%. Yeah. Okay. Maybe some other aspects that we didn't touch upon too much in the call yet is, um, we, we do believe this is applicable to cylindrical cells as well, but we have not, uh, done that yet. So we're now, uh, hope we are starting in a very interesting consortium early next year, uh, with, with some of the European well-known battery manufacturers and automotive company. And, and, and there we go to, um, apply this also in cylindrical cells. And, uh, what, what's important of course is this bending test, right? So if you bend the anode, uh, now in our case, nothing happens, right?

12:34Adhesion is very good. It doesn't kind of, uh, it's not brittle or so if you bend it and push it back. So, um, there, we, we think we can be, uh, be applied, but we have to demonstrate it. Yeah. But also the swelling then in the cylinder, cylindrical cell after you are going to bend it, uh, it's also another issue which you need to consider. A pouch cell is different and, uh, obviously it's easier to handle the swelling. Yeah. No, yeah. If, if you, if you look at the success of Varta, the last couple of years where Varta has applied silicon powder in their, in their electrodes. And as you might know, they also use cylindrical cells or be it very small cells. They, they have applied their battery cells in the, uh, in Apple airport business. And that's been a very good success, both for Apple and for Varta. So I think there you can see at least that it's possible, right? You can, you can deal with the expansion and contraction and, uh, you know, in a cylindrical cell, there's, there's quite some pressure on the, the electrode as well.

13:47And apparently that, that helps, uh, keeping everything stable. Yeah. Maybe for the audience, uh, we should touch a little bit competition or generally industry. Uh, if nobody has done another question. So what do you, what is your, uh, uh, my, and I have pretty good understanding, but I want to compare with you. I want, I would like to discuss with you the today on the, uh, in the industry, silicon industry, I think we are, there is nobody who is using the next form or a better form of the silicon commercially yet. Is that right? Um, Sila Nano has recently announced that their technology is used for a fitness tracker. Yes, I know that. Yeah. That's on the market. I know that very well, but I'm saying that, um, outside of the Sila Nano, I don't know what they are using because they're, they didn't disclose details. So, um, um, I will believe when I will see it. I'm, I'm not bashing them. I just want to see it, you know, and they are, they disclosed that they are using like 17% of the silicon, I think.

15:02Yes. So it could be, um, but outside of that, everybody's using only like two, 3% of the, uh, uh, silicon oxide or SIOX. Is that right? Yes. That's my understanding as well. But at the same time, if you look at the company announcements, right? Uh, Tesla and Porsche and others, they have announced that their next gen cars will, will be based on battery cells with silicon in it. Right. And they will try to get more than two, 3%, uh, uh, uh, with it. So, you know, these technologies. That's everything future. Uh, that's everything future. But I'm asking the current reality, uh, uh, because future may come and may not. So I'm saying that, uh, uh, because we know silicon, uh, silicon problems. Yes. Like 20 years ago, everybody thought that it will be drabine solution. We are 20 years later and nobody found the drabine solution. So, uh, so I'm saying that, uh, uh, my understanding is that there is at about 8,000 tons of the silicon produced this year.

16:17And, uh, is in the form of the, uh, silicon oxide and silicon, uh, SIOX. Is that right? Yeah. But I, I'm afraid, um, that I, I cannot give you too much expertise on, on powdery silicon. I, I have just focused, uh, on our own technology. So we, we know of course a little bit what the pros and cons are and, and the difficulties with powdery silicon, but it's a totally different concept. Right. And, and, and also looking at electrolytes, we see that electrolytes that work well with, uh, with these silicon oxides and, and, and, and other forms of silicon powdery is not per definition, good electrolyte for us. So there are, there are different systems. I understand. So I only wanted to start with that. Now, uh, I wanted to go for the audience to, to talk about, uh, your competition, basically. Uh, the players, uh, silicon players in the, um, which they are trying to, uh, to bring the, uh, uh, silicon to the, uh, uh, to the batteries.

17:24Yeah. So you mentioned already, uh, uh, C-Lan, uh, C-Lan Nano. I have, obviously, almost everybody knows that. Yeah. Because they are very public about it. Yeah. It's a lot of money. And, uh, so they are player. Yes. Uh, who, who else we can talk about, uh, or, uh, uh, yeah, we, uh, be close to commercialization. Yeah. We, we see our competition in general in three buckets. So one bucket is. That's what I want to talk about. Yeah. So one bucket is silicon powdery. So that most of the times you're right. It's only a blend of, uh, maybe, maybe two to 5%. And because of the obvious reasons, right? How, how can you deal with the, uh, the expansion of the silicon, uh, the, the, the graphite and the silicon, uh, lithiated a different way. That's all, all these challenges. Um, so that's one. And, and, um, I think a lot of battery cells, automotive batteries, they, they already have that, right? They already have two to 5% of silicon blended along.

18:29So, so, so, so there are the competitions much more about, you know, um, battery makers are used to it. It can be applied in existing coating lines. Their, uh, companies are scaling up. So that that's the first bucket. And second, we have companies that have silicon dominant solutions. Um, so these would be companies like Anovate, uh, Ampryus. I think our closest peer would actually be Ampryus. I'm not sure whether you are familiar with them. They certainly are good. So, and why is that most compared? Because they also use plasma, right? But they have a more complex, uh, morphology, I would say, right? So first they, they have different, uh, coating on their current collector. So that's already your first process step. And then they have to create these pillars to create space between their silicon columns. And then they deposit silicon on these pillars and then they top it off with the CVD layer, um, uh, for a certain hardness. Right. And, um, you know, this company, this company is on the market for more than 10 years.

19:47A lot of money went into it, but their main applications are more niche applications. So e-flight defense and empowered sales, right? They are not applicable to cylindrical cells. So apparently it's, it's more difficult for them to get into mass markets. Now I should be careful a little bit because we have not demonstrated 500 cycles yet. Right. But if we do with our production process, we are much more eligible for, for mass markets, starting with consumer. And then later, because, you know, it's much simpler process. We create a silicon in one process step and the columns are grown in a self-organized way. So we don't have to create pillars. They just grow that way. Right. So it's much cheaper and, uh, and less complex. So that's Ampryus. Yeah. Yeah. You are on 200 cycles now. Yes. You are trying to achieve, uh, 500 right now. Yeah. Yeah. You got it. And, uh, so, so innovate is also a company with, with, uh, silicon dominant, uh, technology.

20:56Um, yeah, uh, but I, I'm afraid, um, that I, I cannot give you too much expertise on, on powdery silicon. And I, I have just focused, uh, on our own technology. So we, we know of course a little bit what the pros and cons are and the difficulties with powdery silicon, but it's a totally different concept, right? And, and, and also looking at electrolytes, we see that electrolytes that work well with, uh, with these, uh, silicon oxides and, and, and, and other forms of silicon powdery is not per definition good electrolyte for us. So there are, there are different systems. I understand. So I only wanted to start with that. Now, uh, I wanted to go for the audience to, to talk about, uh, your competition, basically the players, silicon players in the, um, which they are trying to, uh, to bring the, uh, silicon to the, uh, to the batteries. Yeah. So you mentioned already, uh, C-1, uh, C-1 Nano. I have obviously, almost everybody knows that because they are very public about it.

22:07It's a lot of money. And, uh, so they are players. Yes. Uh, who, who else we can talk about, uh, or, uh, yeah, we, uh, be close to commercialization. Yeah. We, we see our competition in general in three buckets. So one bucket is, yeah. So one bucket is silicon powdery. So that most of the times you're right. It's only a blend of, uh, maybe, maybe two to 5%. And because of the obvious reasons, right? How, how can you deal with the, uh, the expansion of the silicon, uh, the, the, the graphite and the silicon, uh, lithiated a different way. That's all, all these challenges. Um, so that's one. And, and, um, I think a lot of battery cells, automotive batteries, they, they already have that, right? They already have two to 5% of silicon blended along. So, so, so, so there are the competitions much more about, you know, um, battery makers are used to it. It can be applied in existing coating lines. Their, uh, companies are scaling up.

23:16So that, that's the first bucket. Then second, we have companies that have silicon dominant solutions. Um, so these would be companies like Anovate, uh, Ampryus. I think our closest peer would actually be Ampryus. Uh, I'm not sure whether you are familiar with them. They are good. So, and why is that most compared? Because they also use plasma, right? But they have a more complex, uh, morphology, I would say, right? So first they, they have different, uh, coating on their current collector. So that's already your first process step. And then they have to create these pillars to create space between their silicon columns. And then they deposit silicon on these pillars and then they top it off with the CVD layer, um, uh, for a certain hardness. Right. And, um, you know, this company, this company is on the market for more than 10 years. A lot of money went into it, but their main applications are more niche applications. So e-flight defense and, and pouch sales, right?

24:29They are not applicable to cylindrical cells. So apparently it's, it's more difficult for them to get into mass markets. Now I should be careful a little bit because we have not demonstrated 500 cycles yet. Right. But if we do with our production process, we are much more eligible for, for mass markets, starting with consumer. And then later, because, you know, it's much simpler process. We create our silicon in one process step and the columns are grown in a self-organized way. So we don't have to create pillars. They just grow that way. Right. So it's much cheaper and, uh, and less complex. So that's Ampryos. Yeah. Yeah. You are on 200 cycles now. Yes. You are trying to achieve, uh, 500 right now. Yeah. Yeah. You got it. And, uh, so, so, so innovate is also a company with, with, uh, silica dominant, uh, technology. Um, it's difficult for me to exactly explain their, their process. They're not that open with it, but the way I understand this, it's kind of a pressing or extrusion kind of process in which they press silicon together.

25:44So it becomes more dense and, um, not sure how successful this is. I'd love to, to get yours. Maybe somebody else's comments on that as well. But anyhow, we, we consider that as a, as a competitor. Then the third bucket would be solid-state, um, batteries. And, and why are they, are they competitors? Because of the high energy density that they claim, um, within solid-state, uh, there's anode free, right? Like QuantumScape. Now that's, that's really difficult to, to judge. Is this a winning technology or not, but certainly a lot of attention and money went into it. So, um, um, that remains to be seen. And then there are silicon or sorry, solid-state battery cells that have an anode, either lithium metal or, or silicon. Uh, and then solid power, I think would be there more, our closer peer because they, I think they announced a silicon ended up with 50% or so silicon. So these are hefty, big competitors compared to, to a 30 people company from Leiden.

26:55Right. But, you know, we have, we have some advantages. We think we can play out. We are working with all the major OEMs and battery makers. So if our technology works, if we can get to 500 cycles, I think we, we do have a, a ramp up, uh, advantage, uh, a cost advantage in, in the anode production. Our strategy is to offer anodes, not cells, but anodes. And finally, with the production process comes a relatively low CO2 footprint. So our CO2 footprint is 85% less than a coated anode. So, uh, that's how we, that's how we try to compete. I understand. So, uh, a good question to Milos. Thank you. Uh, I try to put the question, which, uh, uh, to you or discuss with you, whatever is interesting for the audience, not so much for me because I would ask more questions and more, uh, from the investment point of view. Yeah, my firm is investment. So how do you see the industry? How do you see in this industry for the future?

28:18Uh, how do you see, uh, how much battery, uh, do you think we can achieve production in 10 years? Yeah. So maybe one step back. How do I see the industry? Um, yes. Yeah. Let's start off with Europe, right? I think, I think we all have seen, I've seen this map of Europe with all the gigafactories planned, right? So that's very appealing and very good news. Although not all gigafactories will materialize, right? Some of them are more plans than, than, than reality, but we see a lot of money flowing to these, uh, emerging, uh, uh, gigafactories. What I also noticed is it's all traditional technology. So the, these, uh, these battery makers, although they sometimes have this green claim, right? That they can make a battery cells with lower CO2 footprint. It's basically all production technology. And my worry is that in five years from now, we have lots of big battery plants, but the Asian battery manufacturers have, um, further developed more advanced technology.

29:33So how can you compete then with, with that more advanced battery technology, right? So this is where we hope we can play a role by, um, by offering a kind of upgrade of these gigafactories. So, yes, these technologies, uh, is, uh, basically we have the first generation of the battery and battery manufacturing, uh, technologies, which we have it for 30 years. So everybody's, uh, working on the first generation battery, lithium-ion battery. There is no second generation. For me, Tesla with their approach, whatever it is, is, I know, I understand it's not the evolution, but I consider it techno, uh, second generation from combination of the, of the factors, you know, not for the one factor, but combination of the factor. Yeah. Yeah. It's not yet here. It's not yet here. Hopefully they will do it in December or maybe in January. Uh, I mean, volume production, maybe even November, but it's not yet, uh, commercial. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so the way we, uh, our client base is not just in Europe, right?

30:58We're, we're working with Asian battery manufacturers and, and us, uh, OEMs, uh, a lot as well. So it's not that we, not like that. We have to wait until these gigafactors installed and then need an upgrade. Um, but, but, but in our strategy, we try to lower the hurdles as much as possible. And then one is to offer anode roles where you don't need to change anything on the Capex in a battery plant. Right. But, you know, that, that might be a more expensive, uh, solution in terms of OPEX, but, but no, yeah, it would be easier not to change the Capex. And then, then the second wave would be to offer our production technology and they can integrate it in the gigafactories. And then a third wave could be that you also use the same technology to make. Silicon anodes, um, and code them with solid electrolytes. So that you can also use the existing gigafactory to make solid-state battery cells, because it will be difficult to, to write them off and start a new gigafactory with, with new technology for solid-state batteries, right?

32:05So this, this kind of, um, uh, phasing or migration, uh, from, uh, what is it? Uh, lithium mine cells, uh, three, right? Roadmap phase three to three B to four. Now that, that is a little bit how we, how we want to offer the technology to, uh, to be part of that. But now we're not again, limited to European battery manufacturers. So, um, let's see. Yeah. What do you define, uh, lithium mine, uh, battery three or three B? Yeah. There is this roadmap, right. That's being used a lot by, uh, R and D people of, um, generations of, uh, lithium ions, right? So there's, I think three, a would be lithium-ion cells, uh, with, uh, and then C8, one, one, and with a little bit of silicon and a three B would be more, more dominant. So even more advanced cathodes and, and silicon dominant, and then phase four would be solid-state battery cells, right? That's how a lot of industry experts look at it.

33:13And what is two, what is two? Um, I think that would be graphite. Uh, so, uh, graphite. And what is one? And what is one? That's a good question. I don't know. Okay. Whatever. Probably it is, uh, not, never commercialized, uh, lithium metal. Yeah, there could be. Yeah. Yeah. We should give Max opportunity to talk as well. Ah, good. Thanks, Milos. Hello. Good morning. I'm Max from Chile. Hi, Max. Good morning. Yeah. I, I write, I wrote a lot about lithium in Chile. I'm a, the wine specialist of National Geographic Explorer. So, uh, I haven't been working for the two years. So we've been focusing the services and there's a lot of movement in the lithium. Um, we call it the Chilean lithium valley, you know? So, uh, if anybody has questions or things that related to lithium in Chile, I'm here. Um, I'm living near Austin, very close to Tesla because, uh, we have a charging station of Tesla in the co-work where I'm collaborating.

34:33It's the only, only free charging station in the state in San Marcos. So if somebody is around San Marcos, Texas, let me know. Or they can charge for free there. It's an agreement. So, uh, thank you. Sure. Is, is there, is there anybody else who, uh, who has some questions for me also very, very interesting, right? Because we, we started our company five years ago, but, uh, we, we want to, we want to learn what are the concerns or the, um, experiences so that we can either adjust our technology or maybe explain things a little bit better. So very much open for your questions. Christian, I want to thank you for your presentation about your anode type. Yeah. I'm curious about where you see if things work as well as you hope in terms of scale to manufacturing and the cycle life. Could this something, could this anode be used in, say, electric cars? Would it be like a, that type of application? Would it be a high performance, say, like planes?

35:51Where do you see, where do you hope this anode ends up in long term? Yeah. So it's kind of our mission to, of course, uh, apply our pure silicon anode in as, in as much lithium-ion cells as possible. But, but for some applications, there's really a very huge and unmet need. And you mentioned E-flight as one, and that's certainly a very interesting one because in E-flight, of course you need much more energy compared to the weight to, to take off, right? Literally. Um, but it's not just that it is, um, there's also a high power needed, especially for these E-VTOL companies, right? Vertical takeoff and landing. Um, high energy density is not enough, right? Because if you, if you cannot get the energy out quickly enough, you cannot take off and gain height. So, so you need both. Um, and I guess traditionally you would either have high energy cells or high power cells, right? High power cells, as far as I understand, please correct me if I'm wrong, but high power cells would be thinner electrodes.

37:08So that the lithium mines can get quicker in and out, um, and, uh, kind of optimize cathodes for that. And, uh, but no, yeah, because the thinner electrodes also, the, the amount of energy would be lower. In our case, we have demonstrated that we are quite suitable for, um, E-VTOL. So we are able to, um, to, to discharge our cells at quite a high C rates for, uh, for a number of, uh, minutes, right? You don't need it, uh, for the full hour or so, but, uh, they had to get to, uh, to 10 C levels that is possible with our technology. So, uh, so that's interesting. So in terms of power density, I think we're also pretty good. Um, but then again, the cycle life is just not good enough to, um, to last, um, super long. Right. So again, for us, that is the key area that we're working on. So again, E-Flight, yep. That is, uh, very much something that we're working on, uh, automotive as well, but, uh, cycle life requirements are 800 and we're at 200, right?

38:25So will we ever be in automotive? Some, some people ask, then certainly it's our, it's our aim to do that, but, uh, yeah, we're, we're not there yet, but we are working with all the European automotive companies in, in paid projects to, um, to see how far we can get. Are we going to be part of consumer electronics? You bet. That is definitely for us. Uh, we think achievable and also there, there's a big and unmet need for much higher energy density, not just to last longer, right? You can, you can use your iPhone, uh, for a longer time. You don't need to look for cable all the time, uh, or you can create thinner ones, or you can create more powerful applications, but it's also for smaller products, right? For wearables for, for airports, there's a whole roadmap to get into the medical functionality. Yeah. You need, you need better battery cells, right? With very small volume. So that's definitely something we will be part of in the coming years.

39:33And given the fact that we're working with major consumer electronic companies, uh, yeah, I'm quite positive about it. Automotive remains to be seen, but we're working very hard on it. I'm going to answer your question a bit more. Yeah, that answered. So also the question that a lot of. A lot of our companies have tried to move towards a hybrid. Falcon graphite. Can you explain the value your technology has over a hybrid? So can graphite lecture? Yeah. Um, pool. Yeah, we're, we, we are not, uh, interested in graphite at all. So we're, we're not putting graphite in our silicon at all. We want to keep it as pure as possible. Um, so I think why these blends are used is because of a number of reasons. But again, there are probably some battery experts here that are much better able to explain this than I do. But my understanding is you need it because you want to have a certain connectivity. Um, you, you want a blend of, uh, utilizing the silicon and the, and the graphite, maybe not to expand it fully the silicon.

40:55And you want to have certain absorption, um, uh, uh, of the swelling of the silicon. And, you know, that, that's how they try to get a stable, um, a stable active material. Um, but, you know, that comes at the cost of, uh, of your energy density, because the capacity is basically a mix of, of the graphite and of the silicon. And, and, and usually the silicon is not fully utilized either. Right. So, um, you know, it, of course it's best if you can use pure silicon, because then you can truly take advantage of, uh, of the qualities of silicon. Hello. Hi everyone. Hey Simon. Hey Christian. Hey Catherine. Hey Christian. Is this your first Clubhouse session? It is. Yeah. But I, I guess I will manage. Oh, perfect. Yeah. I see a little, so, so if you see the party hat, um, next to your icon, then it's your new to Clubhouse. So you get some special, uh, treatment from, from the crew. Okay. Yep.

42:12So you're, you're going to do a bit of an intro, Catherine. Is that the idea? Uh, yes. So we'll do the intro, um, and then we'll do some housekeeping and then we can kickstart the session. So we'll probably kickstart with you, um, sharing, you know, about the topic. So, you know, we can do a brief summary or whatever works and we will let, um, people who are now in the audience on stage, if there's any questions. So what they'll do is they'll raise up their hand. Um, there's a, uh, uh, a button at the top, well, at the, uh, at the left, I don't know what you call it, left corner. Yeah. Uh, where people can raise up their hand and as moderator, we get to, uh, uh, let them on stage. Um, and once they're on stage, we'll, we'll just kind of moderate, um, people, uh, you know, in the order that, that we see here. So, yep. That's pretty much, um, how the, how, how you go.

43:05Okay. And you were moderating, right? So if somebody wants to, to, uh, ask a question, you'll put them on the stage, so to speak. And then I'll, okay. Yep. Yep. There's also a little button, which is new to a new function to cop house. Uh, you see a scissor at the bottom and apparently you can click on it and it clips the last 30 seconds of what's been discussed. Uh, and you can share that. So that's pretty cool. I've not tried it before, but, um, Okay. Like kind of a summary at the end. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's a good one. I could probably do it a summary at the end. Okay. So I was planning to kind of summarize plasma for anodes in 10 minutes or so. Is that okay? And then we. Yeah, sounds good. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. So it's 3pm. Well, it's 3.02 PMCET. I'm going to just kickstart the session. So welcome everyone back to the 39th session of battery evolution.

44:07We are very close to the end of the year. It's the third quarter. Um, sorry, fourth quarter. So, you know, hope everyone's, uh, had a good, uh, a good year so far. And, um, yeah, very exciting to have Christian joining us today and he'll be sharing about the topic of plasma anodes. So very deep tech, but very exciting because this is, uh, right smack in the space. We're really looking forward to that as well. Um, just before I kickstart a session, um, you know, I just want to remind everyone of the housekeeping rules. So as always, this session lasts for an hour and a half. So we will end at 4.30 PM. Um, and there tends to be a lot of people asking questions towards the end of the session. So we do encourage everyone to raise your hands as early as possible. So we can let you on stage. And once you're on stage, if you're not speaking, just mute your mic. And if you wish to speak, just tap your mic twice.

45:05Like, and if you'd like to applaud to, uh, something that someone was saying, um, just splutter your mic. Like, Oh, yep. So, uh, as always, we really do encourage everyone to join us, um, on stage to have a lively discussion. You know, it can be about a topic, it can be anything that interests you. Just feel free to, uh, hop on. I also have to say that, um, today's, uh, uh, you know, Christian came to us through Edwin. So Edwin, thank you so much for introducing, um, Christian to us. And if you do know anyone, um, that you think should be, uh, up here on stage as a fire starter speaker of, or if you'd like to hear from anyone, um, just feel free to text myself or Simon and, uh, we can reach out to them directly to arrange for this. So you can see that Simon is still on mute. He's stuck in traffic. Uh, so he will join us, uh, in a bit later, you know, once he gets a better connection.

46:05Um, in the meanwhile, these sessions are also recorded. So they're available on Apple podcasts or, uh, Spotify after the events, you can check them out. And previously you've talked about battery recycling, um, supply chain, um, second life batteries, uh, so on and so forth. So feel free to check out these channels for the past recordings. All right. So I also like to apologize for some background noise. If you're any, um, I'm actually in the middle of a typhoon right now, uh, strong winds going on. Uh, I hope it doesn't disturb the session. But in any case, uh, I would like to pass on the mic to Christian to kickstart the session. That's only be doing a little bit of introduction of yourself, Christian. That'd be great. Great. Catherine. So thanks for the opportunity to share a little bit, our story as a company, but first and foremost, of course, the technology that we use to make pure silicon anodes. So my name is Christian Roth.

47:02I'm the founder, uh, and CEO of Leidenjar Technologies. And we produce pure silicon anodes, um, to boost, uh, the energy density of lithium-ion battery cells. And I figured I would take 10 minutes of your time to go through five topics. And after that, very happy, of course, to, uh, to do Q and a, uh, with you. So first I'd like to address the why. So why are we making pure silicon anodes and why are we using plasma deposition instead of coating? Second, I would like to elaborate a little bit on this, this technology. So what is plasma deposition? Uh, what's unique, uh, how does it work? Um, what kind of anodes can you create with it? Uh, thirdly, a little bit of comparison between coating and using plasma deposition, uh, a little bit on applications and, and finally some advantages and disadvantages. Of course, I tried to be a little bit objective, uh, on this as well. And this is not a magic technology.

48:12Of course we have disadvantages as well. Uh, but you know, we're working on that. So, uh, would be nice to, to share that with you. So first of all, why pure silicon anodes? Um, I think most of you will be aware of the qualities of silicon. It's an active material for anodes. It can capture much more lithium-ion per gram. And you know, that's needed because we want to have battery cells with a much higher energy density, but the, the anode is, is the bottleneck. If you use traditional graphite anodes, you, it's very difficult to increase the, uh, the energy density because you're always sort of at the, at the limits of what graphite can do. So, you know, silicon has a 10 fold capacity over graphite. Um, but it has its challenges. So as you probably all know, the main challenge is when the silicon is lithiated, it expands up to 300, sometimes 400%. So in a normal case, if you would like to take benefit of silicon as a material and you would make a pure silicon anode, it would just crack and fall apart after a couple of cycles.

49:31Um, and that is why, um, I think the whole industry is looking at applying silicon with some kind of, uh, protective measures, be it, uh, adding just a little bit of silicon in the slurry or coming up with certain structures to control the swelling, uh, and still have some of the, the benefits of silicon. Now, in our case, we, we produce a pure silicon anode and we remain mechanically stable. And, um, to be very frank with you, this was not very, uh, much intended. This was actually a bit of an accident because the origins of our company was, um, actually a solar cell technology. So the inventors of this technology wanted to make flexible solar panels using plasma deposition, which is common in PV and semi-com. Um, but in their process, they discovered that with the process conditions of this plasma, the silicon was too porous, which is, um, which is a problem in, uh, in thin film PV. So the project was abandoned and only years later, the inventor realized that for also the in silicon might actually be a good mechanism to deal with the swelling of silicon.

50:57So he tried to make anodes of it and it worked very well. He was able to cycle for a hundred cycles at the maximum capacity, 3,500. Albeit that these layers were quite thin. So it didn't really have a very good AI loading. Um, so pure silicon anodes are only possible using a different, uh, technology than coating. You need to do this, uh, with a technology like, uh, like plasma deposition. So I guess that covers a little bit the why, um, this is not just a theoretical exercise. So as a company, we have demonstrated a 70% higher energy density, uh, than, than traditional lithium ions. Um, if you go to our website, you can find a white paper, you can download it, uh, with lots more detail on, uh, the 1,350 watt hours a liter we've, uh, we've demonstrated. So by simply replacing the, um, graphite anode with a silicon anode and combining this with NMC 622, of course, with a little bit of adjustment of the electrolyte, you can really create a, a step change in, uh, energy density and we have a decent cycle.

52:19So, um, so maybe as a second part, moving into the plasma deposition. So, um, there are a range of plasma deposition technologies. And I think the most common one is chemical vapor deposition. And that's a technology in which you insert, uh, precursor gases in a vacuum chamber and you ionize this gas cloud. And in that process, the, the, the, the gas molecules are cracked and they, um, they wind up at a certain, at a certain surface. So, uh, in the anode case, of course, a, a current collector, a copper current collector, um, within this broad family of, uh, of chemical vapor deposition, there are, are numerous kind of sub families. So the family that we are applying is called linear microwave PCVD. So plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition, and we are using, uh, microwaves to, uh, to create a very homogeneous plasma. And under certain process conditions, something magical happens. And that is the porosity I mentioned at the beginning. So when we deposit the silicon on top of the current collector, the silicon grows in columns and it does it by itself.

53:56So it's what we call self organized growth. And that leads to, um, a columnar structure where there is space between the pillars, uh, but also inside. So it's amorphous silicon. It's not crystalline, it's amorphous silicon. And, um, and that structure is very well capable of dealing with the swell, with the, uh, the swelling silicon when it leafyates. So part of the swelling in the X and Y direction is, uh, is absorbed because there is space between the columns. Into the sever, with the sever, with sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever sever to fully absorb the swelling.

55:06So it still swells and contracts. But in an absolute term, this is quite acceptable. And let me explain that a little bit. The fact that you can use 100% silicon at a very high degree, so we can charge this up to a maximum capacity, means that you only need relatively little silicon to get to a decent area load and match it or balance it against the cathode. So while coated anodes are typically, now what is it, 80, maybe even 100 micron thick, in our case, we can deal with 10 micron of silicon. And because the layer is relatively thin, the expansion is also relatively minor in absolute terms. So if you compare this at the cell level, the swelling is not so much a problem because perfide in principle also swells. It might be at a very low percentage-wise swelling, but in absolute terms, it's kind of comparable. So going back, so we have a roll-to-roll technology in which this plasma is created. So again, certain precursor gases.

56:36The most important one is monosylane gas. And then on top of the copper, this columnar structure is grown. So it really grows bottom-up, right? Not like with coating, where you cannot really structure or fade the layer bottom-up. In this technology, you can. And you can repeat that. So what we do is we have a roll-to-roll tool with 10 of these plasma steps. And with each plasma, we grow a little bit of silicon on top of this structure. And the nice thing is the structure is repeated. So the columnar structure is repeated. So the morphology does not change with the number of plasma sources. But in principle, you could very slightly adjust in every plasma step the morphology. And thus, you can really create sort of layer for layer how this structure is built up. Now, with the 10 micron thickness, you are at an area loading of three and a half, more or less. It's not limited to 10 micron. You can also grow thicker, right?

57:59To go to even higher area loadings. But in our experience, it's the thinner the better, right? Because in our case, we have demonstrated that we are quite suitable for EVTOL. So we are able to discharge our cells at quite a high C rate for a number of minutes, right? You don't need it for the full hour or so, but they had to get to 10 C levels that is possible with our technology. So that's interesting. So in terms of power density, I think we're also pretty good. But then again, cycle life is just not good enough to last super long, right? So again, for us, that is the key area that we're working on. So again, e-flight, yeah, that is very much something that we're working on. Automotive as well, but cycle life requirements are 800 and we're at 200, right? So will we ever be in automotive? Some people ask. And certainly it's our aim to do that. But yeah, we're not there yet.

59:21But we are working with all the European automotive companies in paid projects to see how far we can get. Are we going to be part of consumer electronics? You bet. That is definitely for us, we think achievable. And also there, there's a big and unmet need for much higher energy density, not just to last longer, right? You can use your iPhone for a longer time. You don't need to look for cable all the time or you can create thinner ones or you can create more powerful applications. But it's also for smaller products, for wearables, for airports, there's a whole roadmap to get into the medical functionality. You need better battery cells, right? With very small volume. So that's definitely something we will be part of in the coming years. And given the fact that we're working with major consumer electronic companies, yeah, I'm quite positive about it. Automotive remains to be seen, but we're working very hard on it. I have to answer your question a bit, Mark.

1:00:36Yeah, that answered. So I'll start with a question that a lot of, a lot of companies have tried to move towards a hybrid silicon graphite. Cancel, could you explain the value your technology has over a hybrid silicon graphite? Yeah. Pool. Pool. Yeah. We are not interested in graphite at all. So we're not putting graphite in our silicon at all. We want to keep it as pure as possible. So I think why these blends are used is because of a number of reasons. But again, there are probably some battery experts here that are much better able to explain this than I do. But my understanding is you need it because you want to have a certain conductivity you want a blend of utilizing the silicon and the graphite maybe not to expand it fully, the silicon. And you want to have certain absorption of the swelling of the silicon. And, you know, that's how they try to get a stable active material. But, you know, that comes at the cost of your energy density because the capacity is basically a mix of the graphite and of the silicon.

1:02:04And usually the silicon is not fully utilized either, right? So, you know, of course, it's best if you can use pure silicon because then you can truly take advantage of the qualities of silicon. Yeah. I think, Animesh, do you have a question as well? Hey, Krishan. Very, very informative chat. Thanks a lot for your time today. So, one question I had, right, when we deal with these novel electrodes and novel materials, I was wondering how much change do the other cell design parameters do you have to take? Does it like, like how much change do you have to make with, let's say, the cathode? Do you need special separators? Do you have to change the cell design a lot? So, that's my first question. The second question is that, to my understanding, again, again, linking it with the first question, typically cell manufacturers like to control their cathode materials. They like to control their cell design parameters. They like to control their entire production, you know, their whole production workflow.

1:03:18So, is there a bit of, I would say, hesitance that comes along with adapting something that is drastically different? Yeah. So, I start with your last question and then I look a little bit into the format. So, yeah, sure, there is skepticism, right? And, that's not a surprise, right? Everybody's looking at coated anodes. I mean, thin film batteries, it's an area under investigation and people have looked at it in the past and, yeah, they saw that if you create a thin film, your silicon nano just cracks and falls apart, right? But, you know, in the end, this is about demonstrating battery cells and being open and transparent and we're doing that actually a lot. I mean, the white paper has been downloaded like crazy. We are in long-term dialogues with battery makers since our inception and, you know, in the beginning, we, of course, we were not able to achieve always compelling data because we were new to the field. But by having these open dialogues, I think we learned a lot and, you know, we're in serious projects together.

1:04:28So, that skepticism is reducing, right? We were a little bit preaching the gospel on 100% silicon and, at that time, people were starting to look a little bit at silicon and now, I think all companies are convinced that silicon dominant is the way to go, right? It's just a question how far can you go? So, that's a little bit on the questions then. We try to also mitigate that a bit by our strategy and, and the strategy is very clear, right? We want to supply our technology to battery makers. We don't want to compete as all. We just want to integrate our technology with theirs. So, we're doing that a lot. And if you look at our, the people that are on board with Leidenjar, these are experienced battery people. Our CTO is Isopan, who worked in his previous life with Samsung SDI and LG Chem A123. and also in graphite. And we recently Dongham Kim joined, who worked in Argon, the researcher and, and that for many years at Samsung SDI.

1:05:48So, you know, we, we're not just the startup that is trying to convince the battery world. We, we have very good connections with, with the industry now. so that, that's all, I think, heading in the right direction. Then your second question was on, um, the cell format, right? So what? Not just formats, but, you know, there are a bunch of other components and like even simple things that, you know, customers like to control the separator, for example, which is, you would imagine more benign, but that's still a more like a consideration to make. So would you say your anode works? Yeah. So we're using off the shelf, uh, separator stuff from cell guard. So it, it might be that there's an optimization, but frankly, we didn't find the time yet to do that ourselves. Right? So, uh, also on our silicon, it's just exposed to air, right? So there's probably some oxidation here and there on the silicon, but that's just included in our current battery data.

1:06:48Uh, cathode material, we've worked with, with various materials with various suppliers. So, you know, custom cells in Germany and, and Korean, uh, suppliers. So it works with 622 and, and 811 LFP. Um, so now we typically use a 622 of the same batch because we want to, to focus, of course, on the anode. But as we work, um, in quality qualification and get to sort of next stage, uh, cooperation, yeah, of course, we are looking into, uh, optimized cathodes. So for instance, with one company that we are working, uh, they, uh, used their rate optimized, uh, cathodes and yeah, the rate capability jumped up. That was, uh, it's very nice to see. So, you know, we're, we're open to that, but, but in principle, it's not, I think, huge adjustments. Of course, electrolyte is a different thing, right? There, there, we're working on additives and trying to minimize the SEI and also have a flexible SEI. So we're working on various additives to do that, but that's not so much, uh, cell design, I would say.

1:08:04Uh, again, that's, that's all for pouches, right? So we also do multi-layer pouches. We've demonstrated 1.5 ampere hour. We are moving to five ampere hour ourselves or in our lab and light it. Um, where it could be that, uh, you know, for larger cells, we need to optimize wetting or stuff like that. Then that would be typically, uh, done by the, the battery manufacturer. Awesome. And again, I mean, now that we're talking, I have some, a couple of more questions. I have in mind if I, if I may ask. Sure. Yeah. Uh, so one point is that, you know, uh, regarding, so your product, I, to my understanding is the entire anode electrode, right? That is what comes out of your PCVD process. And that is what, um, you know, you got it. But yeah, battery manufacturers adopt. So again, uh, to my understanding with my, with our background and, you know, our familiarity with more coating processes, uh, there is a certain hesitance to directly use fully coated electrodes because again, there's the moisture problem.

1:09:07There's a handling problem. Uh, how does the supply chain of, you know, producing and, or the subsequent supply chain of producing your electrodes and supplying it to cell manufacturer change? Or would you anticipate any complexity to that? Or will it get easier? Yeah. So they are in a very simple way. We're already doing that, right? We're shipping our anodes to battery makers and they make cells out of it. Um, in a more complex way. If you look at our roles, we are now including packaging in, in our, in the design of our fully industrial production model, because, um, uh, the advantage of vapor deposition vacuum, right? Is that, uh, there's no moisture. So, so we will do some testing the coming year to see if we need to package that in vacuum or whether, not because it's rolled up, right? Uh, there's no, there's no real access to moisture in, in the sort of inner layers of the role. Um, but, but then the, the, the promise is that you don't have to, uh, use to dry, uh, the drying step for this, right?

1:10:20So in, in, in principle, um, the fits with, um, uh, with the battery production should be there. The, the only small concern we have is on masking. So we create the silicon on the, on the copper. It gets everywhere, but there's not a clear edge definition on our role, right? Because that is an advantage of coating. So we're using a laser ablation to create that edge, um, and also to look at, uh, taps, taps clearing. So we've know that it works. So it depends a little bit on the battery, battery maker. If they have, laser ablation in their, um, sort of downstream capability, then there's no role for us, right? We just supply the, the role can be slitted. And then somewhere in the production process, there's ablation for the tap. Um, for others that might be different. So, you know, we're talking to battery makers. Should we include this, this, uh, laser ablation on our tool, or can we just allow it for the, for the battery maker, but otherwise it should be, yeah, it should be similar.

1:11:36Very insightful. Yeah. I mean, this was, I like, you know, the, the amount of nuance in it was, uh, a lot more than I initially anticipated. Uh, so one, I will say my, one final question after which I log out. Uh, so you mentioned, you know, when Mark asked the question regarding graphite, and you mentioned that, you know, many other silicon anode solutions consider graphite because of conductivity. Now you guys are a pure silicon plane. Uh, and silicon is not conductive. So I'm curious, you know, how much of a, you can disclose, how does the whole conductivity of your anode material work? Yeah, for, for a short and independent answer, I would look at the article that, uh, Professor Meng recently, uh, published in science. So there, she, in the solid-state battery cells, she also used a very silicon dominant anode. And she also demonstrated that because of the, the high amount of lithiation of the silicon, right? It becomes this alloy silicon lithium with, with a high degree of lithium.

1:12:37That alloy is very conductive actually. So it, it sounds a little bit counterintuitive, right? Semi, uh, silicon is a semi coal material, right? The semiconductor. So how, how come it becomes conductive, but that happens when it litdiates, right? So after formation, it's, uh, is, is, is, we, we have perfect, uh, rate capability. I mean, uh, we're now at three C, uh, charge. We, we are aiming to go to four C because automotive companies want that, but, uh, yeah, it's perfectly fine. You don't need a conductive agent. Very fascinating. Thanks a lot for your time and wishing you guys best of luck. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Christian. Yeah, no, it was really interesting to hear your insights. I hope you can hear me. Okay. Now, Amayas, did you have another quick question? No, I just wanted to make comment that, that, uh, Professor Meng, she used, uh, the 99.9, uh, percent of the Silicon. Yeah, that was pretty dominant. Fantastic. Thank you. And it's great to hear from you, Christian as well, after meeting you in Munich.

1:13:51Yeah, for sure. It's very good. I was a bit quiet today because I'm actually, we just arrived in Barcelona for a BA on battery essentials retreat. So that's why the connections are not that great. But yeah, I think this was really insightful and I want to thank you a lot for, for doing today's session. Um, I think yeah, we learned a lot and, um, also maybe one thing is I can already tease maybe a bit, as you mentioned innovate before, and we actually have, um, Jill is going to speak in the future and she worked with innovate for quite a few years. Um, she also gave a lecture on, on the battery recently. So she will also come on one of these future sessions. So if you want to come back Christian and call them a bit about their process, as much as she's allowed to say, as well as anyone else. Yeah. Very interesting. Appreciate it. Yeah. It'll be fun. One question which I forgot to ask when we have like two minutes, um, what do you, do you know the process of, uh, Scylla Nano?

1:14:44Uh, what, how the process is different from your process? Yeah. So it's, it's, it's probably silicon. You could argue, right? And, and the way I understand it, it's kind of like a tennis ball, right? So you have like tensible, you have kind of a heart outside carbon shell, and then inside it's hollow, but with a silicon layer on the inside. And then when the silicon expands, it's kind of expanding into the, this hollow middle point of the tennis ball. So from the outside, the, the size of the particle does not change. So it, it leads to a stable, um, electrode. And, um, and, and, uh, you can, uh, you can use some of the silicon because it's lit. Yeah. That that's, that's how I understand it, but I'm sure that Simon or others are much more experienced or intelligent explaining their technology. Thank you, Christian. Yeah. And I think maybe we could do this kind of nice overview at some other time. I feel we'll go beyond today's session, but I agree.

1:15:57It's, it's very interesting. I think to compare these different processes and different approaches. So yeah, I think it would be nice. If you have any insights, Milo's you want to share? Otherwise, I would close. No, I didn't have any insight. I was just curious. And, uh, one more comment about that. Uh, I think they are also using silane gas, like the raw material or not, or I'm wrong. Yeah, I think so. So I, I think they're using CVD to create this silicon inner layer of this tennis ball. So I, I don't know the exact details of it, but, uh, yeah, they, uh, they use CVD. I understood the same. Yes. Silane gas to create this, uh, uh, CVD method by CVD method. They are creating these balls. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. With this, I want to say a big thank you to you, Christian, for, for being with us today to share your insights on production of anodes and especially also your journey a bit with your startup.

1:16:59So anybody who wants to look into this more, please give Christian a follow either here on clubhouse or on LinkedIn. And I'm sure you're also happy to connect over there. And then also want to, yeah. And I also want to thank everyone else who was able to join today and ask the questions such as Milo's Mark and any mesh. They were answered before. And also big thanks to Catherine to motivate most of today's session. And also a big thanks to Bavia to actually record today's session as well. And if you're a follower of this for a while, you know, these sessions are recorded to also be on the battery insiders podcast. If you go on battery insiders on Spotify or Apple podcast or anywhere else, listen to your podcast. You can also listen on there again. If you miss anything of today's session or you want to listen to it again. Oh, and yeah. And next week we're going to have another session. We, I think we don't have a speaker confirmed yet.

1:17:44So if anybody else like Edwin, thanks again for today's recommendation. Anyone else has any suggestions and ideas that we should bring on. Please let us know. Otherwise we also got a nice booster lined up for the rest of the year. Brilliant. With this, thank you so much, Christian again, and see you all next.