Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Battery Cathode Production

0:00Transcript

0:00Yeah, so welcome everyone to Battery Insiders podcast. This is our 56th podcast and today we're going to be discussing the topic of battery cathode production. We have Virginia with us here. She's the CEO of Silvatex and it's a really interesting topic because Silvatex is a company in advanced manufacturing and they work with electric vehicle battery manufacturers but what's interesting is that they have a process that makes cathode active materials but without water and they use fewer steps, they use less energy and the idea is how do we make these active materials more economical, easier to produce and have less emissions. And so today I'm very happy to be introducing Virginia so that she can introduce us to this topic in further detail and then we can have a discussion but feel free throughout the session to actually ask questions in the chat option which is the bottom left and Virginia would you like to introduce your topic now? Sure, hey everyone, excited to be here and I think just to give because I'm sure there's a varying amount of backgrounds of everyone that's going to be listening. From our standpoint, how we came to focus on this sort of problem solution set was we looked at energy transition and where are going to be the largest bottlenecks in that transition.

1:42We started to, you know, I think see the notable trends of EV and mobility that was ticking up and going to be revolutionizing more of the transportation energy sector and when you, you know, when that was happening and looking at the forecasts, the amount of batteries that need to be produced is substantial. So, you know, you sort of took these industries that were making batteries for our phones and our computers and increased them 100x into making batteries for a huge market, the automotive market at such a high volume. And the area that we really started to look at was, you know, when you break down the battery cost, I think now it's incredibly obvious that cathode material makes up north of 50%. You know, I think if you look at stats today, it can be even 80% of the battery pack. So it's a huge, huge cost component when you're looking at the cost, but also when you're looking at the carbon profile of a battery, it is the largest carbon factor.

2:51So, you know, that kind of leads you to one making these, you know, the cathode material is energy intensive and not the most environmentally friendly by any means. And also it's the most costly, right? So that's where we focused our attention a number of years now. And we've been lucky to be financed from a number of great institutions on more of the scientific side and then working with industry for our development. But really our goal is to, you know, as these industries are growing and substantially emerging in the energy sector and really supporting that transition is to do it better, right? So the whole goal of the energy transition is ultimately to curb carbon emissions. And that goal doesn't get met if we're making the new version of sort of the oil boom dirty. So I think, you know, for us, we really targeted advanced manufacturing techniques. There's a lot of, a lot of, you know, work I'd say mostly that's been done in advanced materials and really targeting better performance. And that continues, you know, continues to drive new battery adoption. But at the sort of heart, even with solid-state, you know, the biggest cost stack is always going to be a cathode material. So that's where we see the largest bottleneck.

4:22And where we are targeting to make it, as Miriam said, very eloquently, you know, we looked at the future backwards and we said, okay, this, this industry is trying to make batteries at a net zero carbon profile. And there's no way that you can do that with today's manufacturing techniques. It's actually impossible, right? So even if you make iterative efforts, that's impossible. So you actually, you know, to get to where the goal needs to go for a net zero battery, you need to have a technique that is, you know, completely different. So we went to the drawing board and said, okay, what would be the best in class, right? If we were designing for the future, what would be still standing in 2050? And sort of the attributes of a manufacturing technique is one, it has to have something that is the more flexibility you can have for inputs and outputs. That is definitely going to allow for the increase of it being a valuable asset. But then the other big piece is it has to use very little energy and have very little waste. And so that's definitely how we approached, I'd say designing our solution. And then, and then actually how we're coming to market as well.

5:44So happy to kind of dive in a little bit more because I think there's a lot of different threads we could talk about. But yeah, excited to talk through in a bit more detail. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Virginia, for this great overview. And I think, yeah, I mean, I think you already, Mayam, you also shared in the chat, talked about, you know, this massive cost factor and also the largest carbon factor, of course, making it really an crucial technology. And I think, as you say, I think there's a lot of momentum right now. So looking at supply chains and how to improve them. Maybe one thing just may be helpful to, as you said, people who don't really know about cathode production, maybe could you just kind of quickly summarize what's the current kind of situation with like the cards currently done, like the current state of the art. Yeah. You're also introducing a bit like how your approach would be different on that.

6:31Completely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, thank you for that. That makes a lot of sense. So the, the current state of the art is called, you know, mostly for high nickel manufacturing methods, it's called co-precipitation. And this, you know, these, a lot of this production is done overseas, mostly in Asia currently. And as I sort of, I think set up, it's been designed for sort of smaller volume material. So like for making batteries for our phones, et cetera. But in general, and, you know, these, these materials for the battery packs, especially the high nickel are, you know, they haven't been around for a huge amount of time. Right. So about, you know, 10 plus years, like getting into larger market volumes. So the manufacturing techniques have been scaled, but they, they have been, they haven't really quite been optimized. The existing technique is called co-precipitation and you take the actual metal sulfates. So these are, you know, the nickel, manganese, cobalt, that all come with a sulfate salt, and then those get blended together in, in a, you know, a water-based solution in a huge tank. And it's a kind of a multi-step process. That's incredibly lengthy and, but also uses a huge amount of water. And then after that, then it gets dried and then you add in the lithium in a, in a separate step of the process.

8:00And then you, you burn it up really high temperature to then make the actual end cathode material, which is considered to be the, the cam, the cathode active material that could then be sent off and put into the battery pack. One of the things that's interesting is that this process itself sort of has, I'd say like three big problem areas. One is that the materials in the inputs have to be incredibly pure and they have to be in the sulfate format. So you're, you know, the, the molecule about 60 to 80% of the molecules that are going into the process are wasted, right? So you, it's a huge amount of waste that comes out of it, which is, I think a growing problem as these techniques are trying to be skilled in areas where there's more environmental, um, restrictions. So you have a huge amount of sulfuric acid that comes off of the plant itself. Um, also, uh, you know, I think that, um, I think like a typical plant, like 50 kilo KT plant, um, is about $350 million annually. So it's a huge cost, um, in the plant itself to build it out. Um, and a lot of that is because these, you know, it's a huge amount of capex because there's a large amount of water that is used. I mean, each plant uses enormous amounts of water for these reactions. So the, the treatment of that, but also just utilization of the water is definitely a limiting factor and a growing limiting factor and something that, you know, I think a lot of environmental, um, awareness, uh, you know, parties are starting to look at and we're in greater detail. Um, but all that means that, you know, if you roll it up and just look at it from an economic standpoint is that it's a lot of money upfront. It's a costly, expensive process. And then you also, um, overall have a pretty high environmental factor, um, that you have to either mitigate or, you know, or pay the carbon, um, offset credit for. So it's, um, I think it's peppered with problems. The other piece that I think is, um, for us has been interesting to evaluate is that these assets aren't very flexible. So you usually have to lock in some, you know, the chemistry range or, you know, the chemistry itself. Um, so changing chemistries to be higher nickel, et cetera, can be challenging to use the same type of asset. So it's not very flexible. It's definitely not flexible to making, um, you know, other materials. Uh, so like spinels, et cetera. So I think we've, um, that's something that as you look towards the future, um, can be a limiting factor. And as there's a huge amount of buildup that's starting to happen, I think people are questioning, you know, are we putting our money where the market's going or is it just where the market is today? So it's kind of causing this constant, um, problem within the industry is how do we build scale faster when it's so expensive and what scale do we build? Does that give you a pretty good sense? No, that's great. No, this was super helpful. And I think maybe just one quick follow-up question just on the sulfates, right? Like, why does it have to be in the sulfate form or is this just what happened over time? Yeah. The, well, traditionally, um, with the, the, the co-precipitation method, it's, it's in the sulfate form so that it can be, um, it can be diluted. So it can be, uh, brought together in a, in a water soluble solution and the molecules can come together to, to form. So that that's typically how it's been. I mean, the, having the input from a sulfate form is, is an outcome of the co-precipitation method of just increasing solubility. Okay, great. Thanks, ma'am. Would you like to go next? Virginia, you'd mentioned, uh, you know, uh, they need to use pure molecules and the lack of flexibility of these assets today, but also just the vast amount of water that needs to be used to make these materials. How does your advanced manufacturing technique differ and how come you don't have to use the water and you don't have to use the pure molecules and so on? Yeah. And I think it kind of goes back to, um, you know, I would, I'm going to start kind of a little bit from, uh, ethos of organization. So when you look at the, the evolution of the battery pack, um, it's really been, you know, looking at advanced materials, right? Looking at the material that can be used to have a performance outcome. And that's where a huge amount of energy has been focused. So as you see, the industry has evolved, there's been higher nickel materials. Um, and then that's created, you know, a process that needs to be used to make those at higher volumes. And that's been the traditional co-precipitation method today. What, you know, when you're approaching the problem from a different way, when you're saying, okay, these materials are going to need to be made at scale, what's a smart way to make them. It's a completely different problem set versus just trying to produce material at the volume, you know, just, just to scale it and, and be more focused on the material science. So now we're at a different point in time where these materials have evolved, have a pretty good specification. People have a good awareness of how they need to perform, et cetera. So if you make known materials, then you can focus on industrial processes that are much, much more effective. What we did was we looked at other industries that have scaled in a very successful way, making nanomaterials. And we expanded some of that, like we've leveraged some of that knowledge into, um, looking at techniques that would be much better environmentally and of course, much more efficient. So drive costs down. Um, and what we landed on was moving towards a process that was dry. So, you know, other words, waterless, um, where you could use not the sulfate, you know, molecule, right. That has a huge amount of waste and requires all this water to be diluted. Um, but, uh, materials in a more pure form in the oxide or hydroxide form so that, um, those could be blended together, um, in a very simple way. I'm going to be a little bit, um, more cautious here on how I share, but in general, um, we have a simple, um, process that's one pot, uh, that is, doesn't use a, um, a huge, you know, it doesn't use really any water trace amounts of, of, um, solvent material to bring the materials together. And then we, um, and then we calcine them. So I think the, um, you know, we took industrial processes, um, and we, we made it so that we could use kind of off the shelf engineering techniques, um, but applied it into making these materials where we can use inputs that are more readily available over time, um, and don't carry sort of the sulfate molecule, um, that we, that we have to deal with, uh, and that don't require water. So our, our footprint, uh, um, is much smaller of making a facility and our, that means our kind of capital expenditure is significantly reduced. I mean, I think we're expecting on the order of 40% or more. Um, so that's a significant change in the economics upfront and then the operating costs of course are, are slashed. So you're able to make the impact on, you know, reducing the cost of the battery pack, like up to 15% or more, um, without actually changing anything in the battery pack, which is, I think, uh, um, is astronomical compared to other savings that I've heard of and seen.

15:44So if I'm understanding correctly, then, you know, unlocking this new way of making cathode materials and is a result of us having clear specifications for the cathode material. And also, you know, these new engineering techniques that, uh, you know, that are maturing is, is that true? Mm-hmm . Yeah. I would say that are mature and applying them to this industry. Right. So it's kind of, it's, it's a, yeah, it's a, I think it's just, uh, a, a factor associated with looking at the problem solution set a different way. Um, and, but it does, it definitely is primed because of the timing and the evolution of the industry. Right. So that's, I think significant. And I, you know, I think one of the things that is interesting too, is the conversation around, you know, what chemistries are going to win. I mean, every week it comes out that there's going to be different shifts from one market to the next, um, you know, from NMC to LFP, LMO, et cetera. And in, you know, in our mind, the most, the biggest benefit that you can give to the industry is flexibility, right? So you can have that hedge. I mean, when you look at these large energy industries with oil and gas, flexibility was incredibly key to be able to use different, you know, different variety specifications of inputs, right? So it could come from all the different forms. And then, um, you can make a variety of different products based off of what was being provided. So I think, you know, as we start to scale into the volumes that's needed for EV and energy, you know, energy storage, flexibility is going to become incredibly more valuable to the industry.

17:32Great. Thank you so much. And I think it'd be interesting, right? I mean, always big fan of any new kind of, you know, technologies or new, new tools, which are going to be used. I'm just, a question would be also, because you mentioned this calcination step, right? You still require. So I was just wondering, is this like the same kind of amount of energy required to just an existing process? Because I heard this is a very intense, right? Like energy process. Then I'm also wondering, what do you think about, like, you know, you know, replacing maybe gas, whatever it was, hydrogen or other techniques to kind of, you know, reduce your emissions from that step? Yeah. So I'll talk about the first one. I might ask for clarity on your second question. But the, um, the first question for calcination, um, it is indeed, uh, as I think you alluded to, one of the most energy intensive steps in the process of producing cathode material.

18:17Um, so although we don't take that away completely, which would, you know, I think in all processes in the future will require some form. Um, we definitely have been optimizing a process that can reduce that as far as time. So the timing for calcining is much, much lower. Um, and also the temperature is much lower as well. Um, and that changes based off the material that's being produced, but that's definitely a factor. Um, so we're trending at reducing and supporting that in the right direction. Most industry suppliers right now have a, um, their proprietary calcine process. So, um, you know, we're trying to take what they do and then make it so that it's reduced, but not change that too significantly. Thanks. And just to follow up. So do you know the energy sources for this calcination step? Is it like kind of coal? Is it more gas? Oh, great question. Yeah. I mean, and that all depends on where you, you know, we're, I don't want to say you as you being the plant. So, um, I mean, similar to different parts of the world, but definitely North America, one of the biggest areas and factors, you know, I just came back from benchmark, um, minerals conference and headed out to, uh, the automotive battery conference here in a minute. And one of the things that is, you know, very much top of mind is when you're manufacturing these batteries. And of course you have to have prop manufacturing processes that require extensively lower energy, right? So I think right now the industry is just focused on production, not, um, really reduce, like changing the process too much of actually making the battery production lines, but they're very focused on where to put those lines.

19:58So you can have actually access to renewable energy or different energy for your plant. I mean, that definitely makes a difference in your overall carbon emissions. Um, that that's mostly a placement regionally on where you're going to be, um, produced and what does the utility look like, um, and inability, um, for being able to utilize renewable energy in that area. Great. Thank you. And I think, I mean, a few other questions, but let's get to my arm first. Yeah, that's really, really interesting because, uh, of those new policies that are being pushed out where, um, companies need to track where their, uh, emissions are coming from, including scope three emissions, which is, you know, third party suppliers and so on. Are you seeing a shift towards these new advanced manufacturing techniques due to these policy changes or what is, what is the biggest incentive for EV battery manufacturers to move over and to use using, using that technique? I mean, so I think the, for us, and this might be very specific to North America at this current point in time, but what we're seeing is that with IRA, um, that was that, that recently came out, um, you know, there's been a huge push to manufacture battery packs and supply chain and regionally.

21:19Right. Um, and in a much more focused way. So that's definitely sparking a large amount of activity. Um, one of the things that blew my mind is that, you know, it seems like in the news, you're seeing a huge amount of battery plants that are coming up all over the place. Um, you know, I'm sort of speaking specifically in North America, but definitely all over the world and all over Europe. Um, but the, you know, in the North America supply chain to even support those battery plants that need to be, um, to get the carbon credit or sorry, the, the tax credit for manufacturing EV materials, they have to have 70% of the critical materials manufactured in North America or with a trade partner. So, um, and the access of those materials right now for 2030, um, there's only 4% of supply that up can is expected to be in the ground or could produce to meet that demand. So there's a huge gap, huge gap between, um, the supply and demand needs, especially when you start to narrow the focus on, um, where that's being produced locally, you know, uh, like domestically. And then I'd say sort of the, the sort of second piece of that is then making sure that's being done in a economical, environmental way. Um, is I w I would say at this point, kind of a second driver from what we're seeing.

22:50Yeah. And then, and thank you for bringing up the IRA. So if, if, uh, for anyone who doesn't know, the IRA is the Inflation Reduction Act, uh, that was passed by the, uh, us Biden administration. And there's a really big focus on manufacturing new materials, uh, and manufacturing locally. So in North America and in the U S so, um, we're seeing a lot of public funding, but also public private funding that is, uh, financing some of these, uh, some of this work and some of these initiatives. So maybe we, we start talking a bit more about performance and there's a question in the chat, actually. Um, I'll read it out loud, uh, with the innovation on carbon sustainable cathode production, does the cathode you produce easily sync with existing anode materials? Yeah. So the, um, so thank you for the question. The big, I mean, the big focus for us has been to make on spec materials for the market right now. So we've been making, um, anything from NMC 622, 811, 9.5.5, um, et cetera. And then we've also been able to produce, um, LMO, um, and LFP and different methods and are kind of exploring that, um, using our more novel next-gen method as well. So we, we've been able to produce sort of the known materials, um, at a, at a pretty, you know, on a, uh, comparable to, to the market, which is already existent, um, and compatible with existing anode materials.

24:23And I think the, you know, from the folks that I've been speaking with on a more solid-state battery chemistries or advancement in anode or electrolyte technology, most of them are usually sticking with a high nickel, um, type of cathode material. So that's been compatible as well. Great. And maybe to just quickly follow up on that, right? Because I think it's interesting what you mentioned that can do this different chemistries. I'm also wondering if you have seen any differences in, you know, difficulties in between some of them, because for, give an example, I just have heard as recently, I spoke to some actors who were telling me about the difficulty, right. To get a good eight on one or five compared to, you know, six to two or one on one being quite straightforward and just like getting also the door pens and all of these things in a good way. So I'm just wondering if you've seen any difficulties there with some of these chemistries.

25:14Yeah. Great question. And that definitely is the focus area. I mean, the, the manufacturing of those high nickel and then sort of more, um, like interesting doping, uh, doped material is very challenging and that's the area that I think we've had quite a bit of, um, you know, a rate, uh, a pretty large margin of broader success. Um, so we're definitely looking to focus in those areas because the value add to the end customer is so much higher because there are, uh, much more existing difficulties and complications with the, with the process to scale those materials. So yeah, that's, um, that is a great point. And that's definitely where we're more immediately focused because of the upside that we see in our process and manufacturing those materials. Again, our scale, I mean, the sort of, um, not to bury our lead of our risk profile, but it's all about scale, right? So we've been able to do a small scale pilot scale, and then we're scaling the technology, um, at a much larger scale.

26:17And if we can actually do that, right, then, then it is groundbreaking for this industry from a cost and performance standpoint. So it definitely will be revolutionary, but for us, it's a big thing of being able to scale now that we know that we can make all these materials that the industry desires. Great. Thank you. And I think Mark also from audience, thanks so much for joining. You have another question. Mark, you're muted right now in case you're trying to speak. Otherwise, maybe I go in between where Mark is getting set up. Um, because you're also a question I had was maybe Mark will also go this a bit more later on as well. I was just curious if you've ever tried to use also recycled materials and like, you know, trying to, because I see a lot of trends from battery, you know, producers or like, you know, so cathode producers, et cetera, to move into mining and the other way around also a lot of mining companies going to cathode production. So I'm just curious if you've looked into that. Yeah, that's a great question. And we've actually been able to use, I mean, one of the things I think I mentioned briefly is that we use metal oxides and our hydroxides as direct inputs, which one of the forms to get that from that's very easy right now is actually from recycled material.

27:27So we have been able to work with companies that are doing more innovative recycled techniques. We have no desire to kind of go into the recycled space. So we definitely been sourcing from the recycled space to use, uh, the, the recycled materials. One of the benefits of our process that's, I'd say, significant, for unlocking recycling, usually right now, if you recycle a material, you have a huge amount of separation that happens and then you have to do a huge amount of purification stuff and then turn it into that metal sulfate material to then be able to put it back into making a cathode, um, active material. For our process, one of the big things that we, you know, we massively reduce a lot of those steps since you can use already, it's a single pot. So you can already blend in sort of the, the core materials, um, at the different proportions. So, you know, a nickel, manganese, um, cobalt blend and then, um, um, and have it be in just the oxide form. So it's a much simpler, uh, pathway to making the end material. And we have done carbon, uh, like third-party carbon assessments that show that that is, you know, I think it's something north of 80% lower, um, as far as a carbon profile from existing methods. So, um, not only is it possible, but it also massively changes the, um, energy utilization because you're cutting out the steps to connect the dots, to transform it back into the cathode active material. Great. Thank you for sharing. Just quickly check and Mark, are you able to speak now?

29:01Or otherwise, Mayim, would you like to go next? Yeah, Virginia, this is, um, you know, we've been talking about the upstream part of the manufacturing process. I wonder about the adoption. So when you're working with the EV battery manufacturers, what does incorporating this process look like for their current processes right now? Yeah. Or is it that you manufacture and you sell it? Yeah, exactly. I mean, I was gonna say the EV battery manufacturers are usually, um, downstream of production of, you know, materials. Um, so they would just, they're looking to control more of the supply chain. Of course they have cost pressure, um, you know, availability, like confirming scale. And then also they have, um, they definitely have to control, uh, their supply chain much more and have to be much more visible to all of the elements around the sort of the ESG, um, processes. Cause that's gonna be a huge element of their reporting. So, you know, they, they have a lot that they have to focus on, but I don't, you know, I don't think, I mean, you're starting to see some, um, partnerships with like VW and Umicore come out where they're, um, they're starting to actually invest into the manufacturing. Um, I think that probably will start to happen more and more for, for us, it's mostly been looking at making sure sort of we're, we're producing the same quality material that they're, that they're specking out into their battery packs. Um, so we've been, you know, that, I think that that's been our relationship with them and then they need to start building out our roadmap of how they're going to meet their goals. And then we can be included in as material into our process to make their material in that roadmap, um, to make it even achievable. So I think that that's for the automotive OEMs, then it's an area that is, um, it's really powerful because they care about the factors of controlling the cost, controlling the supply, but also, um, bringing down the carbon effects. When you're looking further upstream at sort of cathode manufacturers, um, we're definitely partnering with them at early stages. Um, and then we'll expand that as we start to go to market.

31:21There's a lot of different ways to go to market. And I think for us, we're more attracted to any pathway that's going to increase our scale rapidly, but also be able to bring the market, the cost dynamics and carbon dynamics that it needs. So there's a lot of ways to do that between partnerships and, um, joy ventures, et cetera. Um, the area that we've been exploring more, uh, activity, I think this is not just us at all. This is the industry is, um, closer to mining. So, you know, I think with all, um, everyone, you know, everyone has been now pretty focused on where are these critical materials going to be coming from? How are they mined? And then how do they get sourced into the battery packets, you know, in the most streamlined way? Um, and so that's an area that we have the opportunity, just like, I think Simon, how I shared with recycling, that there's a big opportunity to, um, work with mining and processing companies, um, that are really expanding their capacity. So they don't have to do as much processing and go all the way to this end pure form and all the way to, you know, a sulfate form. Um, and we can get it at a form that is, um, requires less processing techniques. And then, um, that streamlines, of course the cost, but then also the overall carbon efficiency. So that's an area that I think the industry is just growing so quickly. There's a huge opportunity for us to, um, partner and accelerate and create a huge amount of value for the, you know, downstream and EV OEM customers.

32:58So Virginia, are you seeing that the costs associated with your advanced manufacturing process is currently cheaper than the alternative methods that have been used for decades, or does it need to reach a certain scale in order to be much, much more economical than the alternative methods? Mm, great question. Yeah. A very small like demonstration scale. I mean, at pilot scale, even, um, you already see the cost dynamic, um, benefits and then it's actually, you know, just scaling those. Um, they, they, they tend to actually increase, um, as you scale because of sort of scaling efficiencies that naturally occur, um, in, in those costs. So, um, our projections are actually based off of smaller scale. So we expect that we'll even create more value as we scale to larger. Great. Sure. Thanks. And maybe just a quick question also, because you're talking about scale and pilots, et cetera, maybe expand a bit on like, what's the level you're producing at right now? What's the scale you've been producing? Like, you know, is it kilos, tons, et cetera, maybe just to get with a, you know, understanding there, um, like, yeah, how much is scale so far? Yeah, we're at a kilogram scale now, and then we're expecting to, um, increase capacity from there in the near term. Cool. Thanks. Yep. Yep.

34:19That's helpful. And I think, yeah, definitely. Mark, are you able to ask a question now? Maybe not yet. Um, otherwise also a question because it's interesting when you talk about scale and things, but one thing I'm wondering, because you mentioned like different partnership models, et cetera, and I think, you know, we're tracking a lot of them. And as you say, I think there's been quite a few success stories and some haven't been as successful. So, so it's interesting to see how they work. One thing I was wondering, how do you get around this being quite a, I would say personally, quite a risk averse industry, right? So if you affect some automaker, right, you want to put your battery in your car, there's a lot of components, but what you don't want is that the battery, you know, something was bad or something, it's, it's expensive, you know, in case if it happens, recalls all of the good stuff. So I'm just wondering, even though it's a quite a high cost factor of the battery, like how ready do you think or what do you feel, have you experienced so far, you know, existing players, be it the self manufacturers or be it, you know, even once they're up OEMs, et cetera, to kind of, you know, bring a new kind of technique or a new, a new process into this, because I'm just wondering how risky was have you experienced it so far, maybe hasn't been so much of an issue yet? Yeah, and that's a great question. I mean, I think in most industries, that would be an incredibly limiting factor, what we're seeing, you know, what we're seeing in what I think we heard from the market early on as well, is that there's no way to make the solutions that are necessary for the near term future, in the processes that currently exist. So there's definitely a need that I think everyone is aware of to do things differently, right? So I think, you know, and the other part of it too, is that there's, it's not like you're having, you know, there's existing capacity to meet the demand. All this is new capacity that's going in. So if you're going to be competing on a cost level and making materials more domestically, wherever you are in Europe or in the US, to be competitive cost wise, with other sourced material, you need to be driving those costs down from the manufacturing side. So that, you know, I think it's, it's less about the risk of change and what that can include, you know, I think that people are massively acknowledging that the risk for not changing is going to make it so any other approaches that are adopted earlier on, are going to be winning by, you know, magnitudes. So, you know, I've heard, of course, that industry conferences that, you know, there's predictions that huge companies, you know, large EV, like large OEMs, how, how they actually pass their way to building out their battery business is going to be the largest element of how they are going to be, you know, winning company in the next five to 10 years, right? So, you know, I've heard predictions that some of these large OEMs are eventually going to go, go down, because they're not moving aggressively towards where the market's going. So yeah, I think super interesting conversation, Simon. And I like, I don't know, I think it's a really fun time to be in industry because it, there's, I'd say a larger trajectory of people that are knowing things have to change. But the risk is always a little bit different. For us, we saw very quickly, we didn't want to take risk in making new materials as much, right? So if you have a new process, it's very enticing to do, to make novel materials, because you can more so, it's more attractive, there's a lot of optionality there, right? What, what we're seeing is that, of course, if we were making a new cathode material, the adoption rate is, you know, seven years or so to make it into a cell pack. So the, the rate of change and the ability to create that changes is, is much more challenging and much higher risk factor than actually making the known materials and doing it in a different, a different actual production method. So I think we also reduce that risk factor just by nature of our kind of business model and plan. Thank you, Virginia. I had a question. You've answered some of it already, but actually, so there's a company also, there's a competitor, I think called Nano One, and they have a similar metal to cam process that uses a very quick high temperature method without any solution. And one of the big value propositions for them is they avoid the sodium sulfate creation, which is a, a bane of a lot of these manufacturing companies that nobody talks about. They have to create huge quantities of, of solid waste, which I don't know what they do.

39:17They're, you know, in Asia, I don't know if they do solid waste. So I, I assume you do something similar. Of course you start with an oxide or hydroxide rather than a metal. Am I saying that correctly? Am I hearing that correctly? Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Cool. And I, I like the fact that you are looking at the United States to try to produce that here, because obviously with the IRA, there's a lot of opportunities to, to do that here. Could you start with a metal rather than oxide? I'm curious about that. Yeah. I think that most yeah, the short answer is yes. There would be some transition to be able to get it directly in and that's, you know, much simpler and lower cost than you would have for turning into the metal sulfate. So, but the short answer is yes. We just, in our, Nano one is a much more sophisticated, like they, they just have been around for a little bit longer and expanded. So I think they're seeing a similar thing, but that driving it sort of from further, like more worth just the metal material in a, you know, but it's a similar process at the upstream side. And following up that question regarding recycling, because that's my passion, recycling and that's what my company does. Do you, do you think that you're going to have, there's a possibility of a lower scrap rates, obviously, and already reasonably based on your technology that they'll be improved with what you're doing? Well, the, so where are you saying scrap rates, like in, are you saying in actually the manufacturing process of making them? Yeah.

41:00Cause yeah. Cause I think for those of you, you sound like you're pretty knowledgeable. I mean, I think the industry standard right now is around, you know, I've actually seen as low as 80% of yields. Um, so, you know, usually it's around like 85% yields. Um, yeah, we're, we're looking at, um, so that means, you know, generally you'd probably have like a 15% scrap rate based off of sort of the end material. We're expecting actually closer to 90, you know, 98% being conservative or north of that. So what you put in is generally what you get out more or less. Um, so we don't have really any scrap that will come out of the manufacturing process. Um, I am super curious though, like for your, in your recycling world, like what, um, like, do you have an oxide or a mixed hydroxide? Well, right now we, we create like a metal product, uh, with our, our work, like a, um, we could, we could go to an oxide hydroxide. It's not much of a switch. We've just found that making a sulfate is too, is actually less ideal in our, so we don't, we're not trying to produce it because there's a lot of, um, there's a high specificity for making a sulfate actually easier to make a pure metal or potentially oxide than that sulfate. And then you have the issues with having it with water because you have to, you have to ship it with water, with a sulfate, take out that sulfate. And then, yeah, it's, it's surprisingly inefficient. Like it's like surprising.

42:37I mean, you would never have, you would never have, I mean, I think the only other industry we do this in is like detergents, right? Where you have like a little bit of active material, the huge amount of like liquid volume that sits on the shelf, but, um, yeah, it's, you know, there's, it's completely inefficient and that, you know, that trend from what I've been seeing in, um, at like mining, uh, conferences is, you know, it's moving towards that trend. Right. So I think that as people are starting to do more mining activity, um, and doing more processing activity, I think that there's definitely a consensus that, um, moving away from source sulfate and product is, is leaps and bounds better, um, just from, from the mining side and processing side. Yeah. From, from both the, the production side and then the, then the processing. So yeah, it, it creates, it minimizes the sodium sulfate production, which is again, a solid waste issue on both sides. And then of course you don't have to ship the water, which is an energy cost. And then there's also the issue with supply chains. You have to have a very narrow supply chain when you ship a sulfate because they're highly, um, moisture sensitive. You can't be shipping it halfway around the world. You have to keep it like, you know, 10 miles away or, or even closer depending on the environment. So exactly.

43:54Yeah. That's a huge advantage to your process. Huge advantage. Yeah. And it's one that, you know, people don't sort of factor in financially, like in, in simple models. I mean, cause it does mean that you could like the range of where you could put a cathode, you know, active material plant could either be close to where you're, you know, mining and processing that material close to where you're actually recycling that material close to where you're putting into the battery or, you know, or anything kind of in between. Um, so it gives you more optionality to even do that in an area that is, you know, utilizing much more sustainable energy as well. Right. To then have sort of a, a net zero process. Um, if you will. So I think that that's like that, that optionality is, is going to be something that as people start to metric out how to make the future happen, it's going to be the monopoly, you know, the monopoly, like win card. Um, from what I'm going to see.

44:50Yeah. I'm glad your company sees it. Our company sees it and we'll see see where the rest of the world flows along completely. And the thing that's interesting about, you know, um, like just kind of coming back from this conference cycle, you know, I, this industry has so much growth. There is enough. I mean, just like in the recycling space, there is enough sunshine to shine on everyone. Right. What we, what we generally heard is that not only is there enough sunshine to shine on all of sort of the companies and techniques in the space that are trying to make these known materials going into the battery cells in the next decade, but that also we have to do it for X, like, you know, be much more aggressive at our growth models and our growth volumes. So to even meet the, the demand that's, um, that is coming online and is known. So I think that there's like a pretty big disconnect. It's not a, you know, it's funny. It's not about competitors. It's like, how do we actually all support each other to grow faster and learn faster to support this industry and create the climate change impacts that I think we all want to see. Right.

45:57Yeah. We have to all be friends. Exactly. Yeah. I know. It definitely is very collaborative. Well, thank you. Um, I'd like to chat with the outline. I'll send you a message. Thank you. Yeah, please do. Please do look forward to it. That's a very interesting, uh, discussion because Mark mentioned something, uh, relating to reducing scrap rates. And, uh, when I think advanced manufacturing, what I usually think about is, you know, 3d printing, of course, um, you know, I'm not sure what's involved in your manufacturing technique, but I wonder if the technique is amenable to incorporating end of line performance data into, uh, a feedback loop that allows you to actually to more finely tune the way you manufacture your materials, uh, so that it just keeps getting better and better over time. Yeah. And I think that that, um, short answer is yes. And, um, the piece that I, you know, from, um, what we see just cause our scrap rate is so low, you know, we just have a more direct process, right? It's a, it's, it's more refined upfront. There's less, um, uh, waste, you know, or opportunities for waste that can happen during the process itself. So optimization is kind of been designed into it, into the actual manufacturing process early on versus needing to sort of incorporate that, um, continuously. So I, you know, I, I would imagine something like that, like if there was a company out there designing, um, real time feedback systems, like, uh, for out output scrap and optimizing that would probably likely be pretty effective for existing manufacturing techniques to make them more efficient. If that makes sense.

47:48Yeah, it really, it really does. Thank you, Virginia. And, uh, so we have, Ngozo, uh, you have a question. And so, um, if you want to unmute yourself and directly ask, go, so you're currently, uh, still muted and in case you're trying to speak. So maybe Ngozo is having some issues with audio. Um, so I could ask the question that he asked in the chat, which is, uh, when do you expect to be in full production for potential buyers? Great question. Um, have a lot of people asking me this question very frequently. Um, but I think the, um, the short piece is we expect to, um, be expanding commercially around 2025, um, in an aggressive way. So I think our big proof point is going to be in 2024 with a commercial demonstration, um, facility. And then from there, it's just going to be built and repeat. Um, and that is something we look forward to. I mean, it could be potentially accelerated with more capital and more support, but I think that that's a pretty healthy, um, time period. And one of the ways that we think we could accelerate it is if we actually, you know, um, are a bit more aggressive and have more support on some of our process, like engineering expansion. So just being able to, um, manage that in an effective way, knowing that supply chain is a real limitation with a lot of growth models right now. So 2025 seems like a pretty healthy, um, a pretty healthy estimate. Great. Thank you. And I think you're also talking about supply chains, right? I think it's a very big, big, because it's part of the construction. And if you say, right, it probably makes it a good time also for you, you know, to bring domestic manufacturing to the US. But of course, it also entails where the raw materials are coming from and also the refining and pre-closes, et cetera.

49:47I was just wondering, do you have like a strategy on that? Like, how would you approach it as right now, I guess, you know, you're, as you said, like the amount of kilograms is not as big of a topic, but of course it will become a larger topic. And are you planning to build like your own, or I mean, are you thinking about doing your own kind of partnerships where you directly work with the miners or refiners, which some OEMs are doing like Mercedes and others, or are you thinking about, you know, you will get the open markets, you know, on a metal exchange. And then of course, you're also, you know, underlying the price factorations, such as, you know, you go hundreds of times or 500, 700 times price increase in years. So, I'm just curious what your thoughts are on this topic. Yeah. I mean, I think that what we're, what we have the opportunity to do, that's pretty interesting is really help to support and alliance from more of mining processing to streamlined and material users in a really effective way. What you, you know, I think you alluded to Simon, that you're starting to see see, um, and, you know, end users, um, actually make investments and buy raw materials to hopefully push into their supply chain. Uh, one of the things that's been interesting, um, in talking to, you know, the industry in general is that that model is really, there's a lot of pushback, um, typically because what, what Mark was saying with existing manufacturing techniques, the specification of the precursors that have to go in is so significant that you can't just use any, you know, any old quality material, right? So it's been so much specialized, um, for existing manufacturing techniques. So, you know, I think that there's an opportunity for us where we have more variability and more optionality that we can connect those desires in a more healthy way. Um, where one that is, you know, working with, you know, we're kind of doing it from a twofold. We're working with OEMs that are looking to secure their supply and have supply agreements and then being able to be a way to take that supply and make it into the active material they desire, you know, and, or actually source ourselves or have a partnership more upstream where we're taking material that is, you know, more streamlined process for, um, for doing the mining refining and directly making that into high value active material. So, um, you know, we definitely see the collaboration on both sides. Um, so we don't really see that as being like a sourcing problem because our intent is to create, you know, or share the value add with, with the parties that we're collaborating with on both ends of the spectrum. Great. Thank you. And maybe also if Mark or go to my, if it also has another question, maybe one thing just for me to follow up on this also, maybe get your thoughts on how we're standing like globally, right on this topic, because we just said, um, we just, you know, as battery associates, we have this monthly newsletter and as part of this, we had this little like, excuse a tutorial on, you know, how ready, uh, like, you know, specific regions on their battery, um, value chain, battery supply chain. And it's quite interesting, right? Because often it's not even as matched, you know, matched that well from, you know, supply and demand. Germany, for example, has a massive demand, of course, with all of the EV, all the other motor have to go to EVs or hydrogen, but, you know, mostly EVs. Um, and we see by 2035, right? Every EV consultant in the European Union has to be, you know, non-emitting. So again, batteries or hydrogen use batteries. So, um, yeah, I'm just kind of in other regions, US actually now has a massive increase, right? Because of the data track, at least ranking. So there's a great Bloomberg ranking for that, which was kind of out recently, I think as well. So I'm just curious, maybe have you seen like different regions, which are like, they're doing better than others? I mean, now you're talking about the US, but also maybe what's your thoughts on other regions, such as, you know, Europe or, you know, Asia, maybe different, you know, Indonesia, a lot of other players, you know, going up the battery chain of batteries. I'm just curious, maybe what your thoughts on the different regions are at this point.

53:57Yeah. You know, it's, I mean, it is a huge geopolitical change, right? I think every region is looking at where they're, um, where they're going to be able to create a lot of high value jobs and, um, good benefits and energy security, like what part of the supply chain can they do really well? You know, you have like Indonesia, who's, who's saying, Whoa, we have, you know, so much of the world nickel, right? So we're going to start to look at ways to extract that and be able to upgrade it, um, and create high paying jobs and hopefully wealth for our communities, which is great. And, you know, I think, um, one of the things, I mean, so I, you know, every country is trying to really understand and invest in, um, growing in the space and being able to create those high paying jobs and that economic maturity for the, you know, for their country. Um, it's just a matter of how they're doing it. One of the things that, you know, we've heard as a trend, that's pretty interesting is usually like mining has been this extractive process, um, versus being like lucrative for more so of, you know, the, the local environments and like, like local regions. So I think that there's actually a pretty big change on trying to flip that over and say, well, actually mining can create a lot of high paying jobs. And if the more that we actually source making high value material close to where it's being extracted, then it even creates, um, more of that wealth, um, and, and wealth production, more localized. So, you know, just like with kind of, I would say traditional energy sector, the more that you can create high value products closer to where material is being mined, the better off those communities are. Um, and you know, in our mind, that's really an important trend to be able to support with manufacturing techniques, because then you're able to create that wealth, not just have it be concentrated, um, at areas. What, what we saw, you know, if you look at, um, what's been done in Asia and China really, really well is, you know, they've done a really good job at doing high volume production. So developing methods and supply chains to really do high volume. So they're, they're able to play that high volume gay really well. Um, and are, you know, I'd say leap years ahead of most regions doing that really well. So, you know, what I've generally heard from a trend in, um, in growth that's happening in Europe and, you know, Germany specifically and in Canada and the U S and, um, South America all over is that everyone's, you know, the volumes are going to be smaller and more retrofitted to have a more localized supply chain and kind of close those loops, um, in a smaller proximity. And, you know, some of it is because of what's needed, like as Merck said, um, uh, that are limitations and some of the materials, um, and sort of supply chain limitations, but some of it is to actually, I mean, all of it is likely going to be better for environmental effects and having a much lower carbon footprint, um, but also being able to have more energy independence, um, and produced in a more domestic way. So it's, it's gonna, I don't know, I'm excited to see and be part of that solution. Um, as you know, and create more optionality as these industries start to mature, but I really see it as, uh, I mean, there's a lot of activity all over the world of where everyone's starting to realize what resources they have that's valuable for the energy transition.

57:50Great. Thank you so much. And I also just put here a link, I pinned in case you are, um, you know, listening to this live on Clubhouse right now, you see a link here from this Bloomberg Energy Finance 2022 Global lithium-ion battery Supply Chain Ranking, which I think is very interesting. And especially if you look at the plot of the end of this article, um, this graphic, it's, it's quite interesting. Um, but yeah, if you listen to this as a recording, you can also find it as, um, as a, you know, um, yeah, in the show notes of this podcast. Um, just really quick, I will just quickly reintroduce maybe Virginia as well, because we also have some new joiners who are asking for this, and we have about half an hour left and we know usually the last half an hour can still be, but we also get a lot of questions. So if you have a question, please make sure you raise your hand or you put it into the chat as well. And I think, yeah, just a quick one for today is our 56th, uh, battery revolution slash battery insiders podcast session. And today we have Virginia with us, who is a expert and battery cathode production, which is the topic of today. We covered the different, you know, um, production techniques, what she's working on and also going all kinds of interesting directions related to supply chains and all the latest developments in the policy landscape as well.

59:02Okay. With this, should we go to Mark next? Hi, I had one more question for you, Virginia. It's about the battery cathode active material qualification process. It's the one thing that people don't give a lot of detail about how that process goes in terms of the, you have to send it to the, um, you know, the, the cell maker, they have to play with it, put it in, put it into a pack, put it in a car, drive that car around. How could you walk us through that process and how long that takes, if you have any idea? Yeah. And I think, um, yeah, Mark, thank you for the question. Cause I think there's a little bit of nuance there depending on, um, if you're making a known material or like changing something in the supply chain and doing kind of a requalification, or if you're making a novel material and then looking at how, um, like the, the battery pack and then having to kind of do that all over. Like if you're what we, you know, we actually worked with, um, the lithium suppliers early on to understand how they do their qualities, you know, quality control. What we understood, um, you know, I would say, you know, about five years ago, right. It was, you know, we, we heard about Tesla, um, confirming the offtake of one lithium mine for the next 10 years, because they saw that over time, the batteries from that supply, like from that lithium source were performing better for longer. And so, you know, I think that there's a lot of insight that it, you know, that there's a lot of versatility of even, even going back to a pure product of like the lithium hydroxide, um, how that can affect the performance. Right. So we, we talked to, um, like our first process at qualification was understanding from, you know, sort of the lithium industry when they're looking at different mining and when they also, you know, they're trying to really, um, extract more value for being able to produce high value lithium that has high performance batteries, um, and then be able to have a higher price and demand a higher price for that. Um, so they actually, you know, as an organization, um, many organizations, they actually make, um, cathode materials or different lithium sources.

1:01:15And then you do that internally, you look at all of the morphology, um, you know, how the actual composition looks, et cetera. And then you look at it in an electrode, um, and look at the bench scale of that. So that was really interesting for us, um, to sort of leverage the learnings from that industry. And, and in the cell qualification process, more specifically, um, you know, it depends on who you're working with in the supply chain. If you're working with sort of an, um, EV OEM, uh, usually how the interaction we've seen works is we say, Hey, we have, you know, you get into a confidential relationship. We share a lot of our initial data on our specifications of different, of specific material. We, we gather from them, what their specifications are, um, cause usually they have a specific cell pack and material that they're sourcing or working with to be put into that cell pack. So they have, um, they have more unique, um, specifications that, uh, we may not be as privy to. And that's one of the values of early collaboration is, is being able to get that access and make sure we're, we're comparing apples to apples. Um, and then we work on a sample, um, together and then we have collective shared evaluation of that, of that sample. But usually, um, that sample likely doesn't need to go all the way up to kind of the battery pack volume that you're talking about in the vehicles, cause you don't see as much change in the cell or pouch cell data. So you have a much more simplified process, but it's simplified with the collaboration, um, early upfront versus if we were just making, you know, a bunch of material and want to be a supplier now, um, to them at high volume, then it would look very different, right? They would, they would get the volumes and do just like what you said, um, as opposed to kind of the early collaboration qualification process that can be more streamlined. I have a quick follow up to that question. So, yeah, are you looking at North American companies or are you looking at worldwide companies to qualify your product and potentially? I mean, most of the companies that, um, I mean, in the sort of the top tier sector of, uh, EVOAMs and battery suppliers, you know, they're global companies, um, but they're, they have a regional interest and focus. So, um, that's, you know, that's who we've been targeting and who we've been collaborating with. Thank you, Virginia.

1:03:51Yeah, completely. There are also, I will note, I will note this, um, for any other listeners and kind of the space, but, um, I mean, very specifically in the U S I know that, um, Europe has done this really well, but there's more, there's definitely a lot more, um, support and going into, um, battery testing facilities. So if you have a novel technology kind of in the space, there's becoming more resources of being able to put that into a battery pack and collect that data without having to, um, do that with an end, uh, end party or potential end customer. Right. So that's becoming, I think really important for innovations to have the information they need to make sure they're performing well, um, as they go into the market and we'll hopefully increase that adoption at a rapid pace. So, um, Europe has, you know, done that well. I think the U S is starting to invest in that, um, pretty substantially for sort of the North American market. Thank you so much, Mark. And, uh, for those questions, um, Virginia, you had mentioned, um, you know, the current process requires the use of pure molecules. I have very little context into, you know, how molecules are purified, but I, you had mentioned, uh, mining companies, uh, being, being interested in, um, in the methodology use. And I wonder, is there a world where binding companies no longer, or, you know, purifiers no longer have to purify their molecules in order to make these cathode materials and we could circumvent that step altogether. Um, so I think the one thing I just want to like in your good question, I think that quite honestly, there's a lot of devil in that detail. So I don't think it's, it's not one step, right. In that quality, like in that purification process, there's a multi-step, uh, multiple steps in every type of sort of mining and material processing, um, and, uh, purification, uh, process.

1:05:57So, um, and there's a lot of steps too, from going from, um, you know, purity of 99.3% to 99.9% that's needed to then make it into the metal sulfate. And then to, you know, as I think Mark alluded to, there's a lot of nuance also to have a stable molecule that can be moved around. Right. So there's a lot of elements in there, um, that are really challenging for sort of getting the level of purity at that last big push that could be very easily optimized, um, to be removed, um, with coordination in upstream partnerships. So I think that that's what, you know, um, quite honestly, I'm not a specialist in material mining or processing market probably answer this better. So I'm interested to hear your thoughts, but I think, you know, there is a lot of opportunity, um, in making combining those efforts and reducing the resources and making it much, much more streamlined than having them be completely disconnected, um, and allowing for a large, more amount of value to be funneling through. And just to keep in mind, like the, you know, BASF just reported that, um, in one of their presentations, I think it was that 70% of the battery pack cost is cathode material. And, you know, about 40% of that is the manufacturing. The other 60% of that is the raw materials. So if you're able to streamline those and use, you know, class two, or just less optimized, you know, it really changes that cost dynamic of the, of the input side substantially. So there is, uh, I mean, we're excited about the opportunity there for sure. And creating more optionality for the marketplace. Mark, I'm curious for Miriam's question. If you have any, uh, input there, given that you're trying to make probably materials that you're going to feed in as well. And the difference, like the nuance of how challenging it is to get it to like that last level of step, um, or those last steps. And yeah, that's, that's a good question. You're asking me questions now, um, you know, we're, we're starting up our pilot and, uh, running it right now. And, um, it's a, it's a, it's a challenging question because obviously with some, some of the products, it's easier than others. And, um, it also depends on our feed. Meaning if we have a more consistent feed, it's easier to produce consistent off book. Now, you know, typically in a, um, if you look at a spec sheet for a, um, and we're not producing a sulfate, we're saying we're producing an LME product, a metal, um, certain elements are easier to remove than others.

1:08:53And, um, let's say we're producing three nines nickel, for example, we, we could be produced. It could be too much of one element that may not pass say a nickel sulfate process, but it may make the nickel LME, uh, product satisfactory. So this is why we've chosen to go with the LME product because there's flexibility. Say we could, you could say, go to a further product, hydroxide, a sulfate, but we can also sell that metal as a metal in other industries as LME products. So, um, I think the fact right now in our current supply chain, every, and even, even the recycling processes, every product requires a refinery to go back into the battery market. Now that's part of it is because the way the inputs to the manufacturing work for cathodes. But if there was a different cathode process, say yours, uh, there's a possibility you could use a slightly less impure product. Let's say for example, and this is just totally hypothetical. It's not true. Let's say there was a little, let's say there was, um, you know, a hundred PPM phosphorus. Let's say that, um, you know, typically would not pass a, uh, pre-cam process. It could be say with your process, um, it could, it could work, for example, um, go into your process and, um, and, and even, you know, like I said before, even recycled products, they all have to go to re a refinery. I've not yet to see any product at a commercial scale that doesn't have to be refined. I, if you show me otherwise, I love to see that, but even ones that say that you can avoid that, um, I haven't actually seen in fact that actually happening in a commercial scale. Yeah. Thank you so much, Virginia and Mark.

1:10:54Um, so, you know, with every new innovation, every new, um, technology, there's, there's a lot of impact that can be had on the world. And I wonder Virginia, what the vision is for Silvatex's impact on the world, um, as you scale the technology, as you scale the impact of your technology, what's that vision that you have for Silvatex? Yeah. Thank you for asking that. The part that, um, I guess I should emphasize is the whole reason we get up every day is because we know the world needs to change and we need to change it in a pretty dramatic way. Right? So we looked at what are ways that we can make a big impact and we looked at carbon effective, um, approaches and that's how we kind of ended in, into where we are today. So we are a hundred percent driven by impact, you know, and the, the way that we, um, kind of look at impact, uh, is in a twofold. So one is driving costs down of making battery packs increases sales, right? There's a, um, I think there's a one to three ratio. So if you bring, you know, bring down the cost of the battery pack, 1% increases a 3% increase in sales, um, or, or something along those lines, maybe even 4% now. Um, so what we're seeing, um, and how we look at our impact is the more that we drive that cost down, the more rapid we can increase EV and energy storage adoption, um, which ultimately cuts substantial amount of, um, amount of emissions.

1:12:45Um, our hope is to be part of, you know, even with sort of small, um, a pretty small market penetration, um, just because we're creating a cost dynamic, that's pretty significant. We can, uh, we can really help to influence that adoption cycle and drive carbon reductions in the gigaton, you know, volumes. Um, so it's, it is a substantial amount of reduction for direct carbon emissions, um, by enhancing and allowing for these, these, uh, solutions to get into the broader market. The other piece of it is, you know, it's like, do good by doing good, do more good by doing more good. Um, however you want to think about it is, you know, the way that we're, um, also doing, um, you know, a synapse, a significant amount of carbon reduction, uh, is also by these industries that are significantly increasing, making sure that their carbon emissions impact is mitigated, um, in just dampened up front, right? So that you don't have the carbon impacts of direct energy utilization. So, you know, I think our last, um, energy report showed that we could reduce the energy in, um, to the process by 80%, which is a significant carbon savings. Um, and then when you look at, of course, if that was from renewable energy, um, uh, then that would be, um, that would be, uh, you know, could be even moved into that zero. Um, but also, you know, you have to look at the waste. So I think Mark alluded to, or one of the, you know, one of the other members talked about, you know, there's a lot less known about how much waste comes off these processes. Um, you know, a lot of it has been done overseas in the nation, there hasn't been as much qualified. Um, but it is a really big problem and there's a lot of energy that goes into that process and also moving these materials around. So if you have to move less molecules around the world, you're reducing carbon emissions significantly there. Um, and also you are reducing the carbon emissions that are associated with all of the mitigation strategies to purify, um, you know, recycle, et cetera, all of the waste that comes off of the process itself. And that's where we, you know, have a, clearly a game changing approach, um, compared to conventional and that method as well.

1:15:15So, um, yeah, very, um, excited about the future. I have, I think a lot of confidence that, um, the industry and the growing industry knows that needs to make, um, pod like very strong, positive change as they're adopting solutions at scale, um, to make the impacts that are needed for the global change. That I think all of industry, um, and, you know, United forces wants to see. Great. Thanks so much, Virginia, for sharing. I think it very much resonates with many of us, right. Who are in this as a, as an impact driven, you know, um, endeavor and kind of a positive impact. So I think that very much connects many of us here. Maybe I have one last question from my side before we're going to wrap it up. Um, cause you mentioned, you know, you, I think in the beginning of this podcast recording, you mentioned kind of, you look at different topics and you found this cathode production be a very, you know, an important one, because as you mentioned, right, from a mission standpoint, and, you know, also of course, from an industry perspective for cost, et cetera. So I'm just wondering, um, if you wouldn't do that, what else would you do?

1:16:20I mean, welcome to stay in this, this area, but, um, I'm just curious because, you know, would there be another topic and batteries you think would be good to look at? Maybe also people are listening to this and they're wondering what else they could do, you know, because maybe the cathode is already covered now with you or others, but, um, you know, what, what other topics you find really fascinating out there in the battery space? Well, I mean, I will definitely invite, um, other listeners. I mean, the, like, uh, there's going to be so much growth in this space that even if we're wildly successful or when we're wildly successful, um, we're still not going to be able to capture the amount of volume that's needed to sort of unlock. So I think that there's, you know, I would definitely invite more parties into the space, specifically in sort of the cathode cathode world, but anode, you know, there's a lot of activity there. I mean, the amount of volume, um, is needed, um, to, uh, be utilized as substantial, um, on that, in that space as well. Um, and then when you're looking at sort of the battery supply chain pack and you're looking at the carbon emissions, there's, you know, there's been some moving work here that I've started to see, um, but looking at ways to do, um, some of the coating and doing dry coating techniques on, um, on making the electrodes and just more in the advanced battery pack manufacturing methods, um, because there's a lot of sort of solvents and chemicals that are used. Um, and there are pretty, you know, still pretty energy intensive processes that could be streamlined. So, you know, I would, I mean, the, this, this industry is growing at such high volumes, there's probably going to be, um, and you're seeing this significantly, there's less of an adoption of, you know, different advanced materials and chemistries. It's going to be more iteration change from there, but the way that you can make substantial impact around the cost profile and the carbon profile of the battery pack is going to be on, um, integrating manufacturing techniques. And also the other side of it that I think is pretty exciting is, um, mitigating the, the waste strategies and, you know, having ways to qualify battery packs throughout the chain of command in a more effective way. So you have less scrap at the end of that, you know, at the end of that, um, production unit. So if you're making these battery packs and spending all of that energy and you have a 15%, you know, 10% waste stream, um, that's a pretty big amount of a carbon profile. So, so, you know, I think that there's a lot of methods that haven't been looked at, but just qualifying, you know, using interesting different techniques on trying to qualify the, um, the battery pack at different, uh, different stages of manufacturing so that you can mitigate that waste and increase the performance of just the battery manufacturing itself.

1:19:23Fantastic. Thank you so much. And also for, for some great other ideas and topics here. Yeah, with this, I want to give a massive shout out to Virginia. Thank you so much for, for spending your time with us, giving us some great glimpses and insights into the world of cathodes, which is, I think also probably have hopefully also, you know, brought across to many of us and many of our listeners, you know, the importance of it and also the potential of, you know, further development. So I think which is really exciting and also maybe more localization of the battery value chain and supply chain in different regions around the world. So yeah, massive thank you, Virginia. Where, if people are interested to follow you more or kind of, you know, get in touch, how should they reach you? Is LinkedIn good or? Yeah, LinkedIn is great actually as a, as a first pass. I mean, also our website. I see a lot of those or it goes to my colleagues. So definitely, but a direct LinkedIn would be, it would be wonderful and would look forward to talking to many of you. Fantastic. Thank you.

1:20:18And with this, I will do a quick teaser for our next session because we also have another session. And the next session will be actually on the 16th of December. So a bit of an unusual date in our regular schedule, but it's a bit of a special episode. I'm also going to put here a quick link because we have the founder and CEO of SES with us. So it starts the solid-state company, I mean, they're a bit older, maybe not in a startup, but yeah, as a, as a, so it's that company. And it's quite interesting because on the 13th, they're going to have this event, which I've just tagged here also on this clubhouse, but you can also find the show notes where they're going to actually release, at least with teas, they're going to release a lot of new, interesting data. So the idea is two, three days later, we can actually grill the executives, maybe Chijau, maybe also others on these developments. I think it should be quite a nice interactive platform. Of course, we spoke about solid-state in the past, but I think it's always a fantastic, of course, opportunity to bring also some other, you know, solid-state leaders on this platform. So yeah, look out to that. And we're going to send it also around via email as usual, if you're on the batteryinsiders.com email list. But yeah, hopefully it should be really interesting discussion and talk all about solid-state, of course, another topic, which is, I think also fascinating to many of us. Great. So yeah, hopefully see many of you with this on the 16th.

1:21:35And otherwise, you know, if you're listening to this on the podcast, feel free to also rate it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen on it, it really helps to spread the word as well. So with this, Mayom, any final words? Thank you so much, Virginia, for your topic today. I never thought about battery cathodes as much as I have in the session, so learned a lot. And I thank everyone for joining. If you have any questions, please follow Virginia on Clubhouse and yeah, on LinkedIn as well. And see you guys in the next session. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day. Bye everyone. Bye bye.