Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Natural nano silicon

0:00Transcript

0:00So this is our 64th episode of Battery Revolution podcast and every single week we, or every single month, we learn so much about the different aspects, different involvements, initiatives, innovations happening in the battery industry. I don't think I've ever been introduced actually to the topic of natural nanosilicons for anodes. And so this is a topic I'm very curious about and very excited about. Throughout, please, in terms of the audience members, please do not hesitate to put your questions in the chat. And then once Andre and Jake have introduced their topic, feel free to also raise your hand if you'd like to come up on stage and ask your questions. But for now, Andre and Jake would love to give you the floor so that you can introduce what you're working on and introduce yourselves and the topic as well. Great. Thank you, guys. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss our company and answer any questions you may have. I'll start by introducing myself and then in the company and then, you know, Jake can also introduce himself.

1:12And then we can kind of dive in that way if that works. So, yeah, my name is Andre Zetun. I'm the founder and CEO of Ionic Mineral Technologies. Ionic Mineral Technologies is a we kind of have a unique approach. We're solely dedicated to producing nanosilicon, you know, powders for the, you know, lithium-ion battery markets. And really what sets us apart, I think, is we can have a combination of a proprietary kind of continuous process to start with a mineral feedstock. That is a mineral called heloicide, which is a naturally occurring nanotube. Again, it's an aluminum silicate. And so we essentially, instead of trying to synthesize a nanoparticle, we start with a nanoparticle coming out of the ground. And, you know, combined with a scalable, robust process that relies on conventional type, you know, thermal reduction equipment, we can produce a nanosilicon product that is essentially almost identical to the naturally occurring nanotube structure of the mineral that we start with. And so, yeah, I'll leave that introduction as a long one there and I'll let Jake introduce himself as well.

2:40Yeah, good morning or good afternoon to you guys. Thanks for inviting me and Andre on. My name is Jake Entusel. I'm the director of battery materials here at Ionic. And so my work sort of involves taking this mineral, which we control and putting it through our patent pending process to produce the nanosilicon. And so that's my area of expertise. I did my PhD on this production process. And that's how I ended up here at Ionic. Moved to the US from the United Kingdom. And I also lead up our sort of in-house battery testing capabilities that we have here in Utah. So, yeah, that's from me. Thanks, Jake. So, Simon, how should we go from there? Maybe just kind of start with a bit of a 30,000-foot overview and then just see where the questions come. Or do you have questions to start with? Let me know what's the best way to proceed. I think it would be great, yeah, if we could just start with a higher overview for people to know.

3:50Again, maybe some people have never really heard of silicon and why, you know, that's relevant for batteries. And then why maybe could you go to the sources you are going to, right, from a natural perspective and nanomaterials, et cetera? Sure. That's great. Yeah. So, yeah, big picture. I mean, nanosilicon and why. Essentially, the way we, you know, look at the world. And, again, this is, I think, kind of universally accepted at this point. Nanosilicon is considered one of the most enabling materials for next generation, you know, electric vehicle, you know, batteries as well as all, you know, lithium-ion batteries. But I think where we see the biggest need for this material is in the, you know, electric vehicle industry. And the reason why is because nanosilicon essentially has about 10 times the energy, excuse me, capacity as current graphite anodes that are used today. And so the, you know, to be able to see mass adoption of electric vehicles go from, you know, 10% globally to the, you know, goal of over 50%, you know, and in some cases, a lot of the vehicle manufacturers are kind of targeting zero, you know, fuel-burning cars, you know, by 2030 being sold.

5:10So the very, very big projections, a lot of work laid out in front of them. And really, we see nanosilicon as the most enabling technology mainly because of the ability to have longer range, but also more importantly, in our view, is the fast charging capabilities. Nanosilicon is really the only material in the market today that can be used in conventional processes that are using, you know, graphite chemistries to be able to enable that fast charging. And that's one of the biggest, I think, challenges for being able to see mass adoption of electric vehicles. And so, you know, it's not a, you know, every day you hear about a new breakthrough and, you know, battery technology and whatnot, but this is really the most practical, you know, way of being able to do it because, again, it doesn't require any retooling from the existing cell manufacturer plants that are in place. And also partial substitutions of graphite make significant differences in the actual ability to charge fast and for longer range.

6:16And so the big challenge, however, is that while silicon has been used and is currently being used in pretty much all vehicles, you know, at this point in the batteries, the big challenge is that the material swells when it's during lithiation, during charging. And then in some cases, if it's not small enough crystallite size, if it's above 150 nanometers, it swells and cracks and then forms an additional SEI formation. And therefore, you see, you know, capacity fade, you know, from cycle to cycle. And so current batteries today are using anywhere from, you know, 3 to 10 percent of silicon. However, what's being used for the most part is metallurgical grade silicon, which is a large particle. And so the big goal of the industry is to be able to start incorporating more and more substitution of graphite with silicon. However, at the nanoscale, if it can be produced at the nanoscale, this, you know, volume swelling and also capacity fade is significantly, you know, curtailed.

7:28And so the big challenge is how do you make anything at the nanoscale and how do you do that economically for an industry like electric vehicles? And how do you do it in a way where you're actually mass producing such materials so that can meet the, you know, the quality control and meet the actual needs of the vehicles? And really, I think where we have a where we see our advantages is that versus some of the some of our peers, which are trying to produce nanosilicon or the process of scaling up the production of nanosilicon from a silane based, you know, feedstock. We are actually using a mineral called holoicyte, which is a naturally occurring, again, silicate nanotube with the perfect dimensions of what's essentially going to need it below that 150 nanometer. And it's porous as well. And so because we're already starting with that synthesis or that with the with a nanomaterial synthesized, the the the ability to be able to now take that material, reduce it from a silicon oxide to a silicon metal while preserving the the morphology of the particle is really where where we feel there's a big scalability advantage.

8:47And so. So with that, I'll stop and see if anyone had any questions for we dove in, but that's kind of a 30,000 foot view, I think, of the market as well as the differentiator between us and some of our peers. Thank you so much, Andre. So if I'm understanding correctly, then what you're saying is that silicon is required in order to help us meet our electric vehicle performance targets. But currently there is a technical challenge when you're using silicon is that the material actually swells when you're charging a battery, which means that you're going to degrade and deteriorate your battery a lot faster than you than you would need to. But since we do need to incorporate more silicon and graphite mixes, then you need you need a better way or you need a better material for silicon so that you can curtail that problem of swelling and cracking. So now your company is really you're positioning yourselves to be able to mass produce nano silicons that are produced from natural source materials that allows you to better get to that end material, which is a silicon that you can then use in your battery without introducing extra steps that are cumbersome to adopt in the industry.

10:18Am I understanding correctly? Yeah, I think so. I think the big thing here, though, just to mention is that convention, you know, the silicon that's being used today in small amounts and batteries is metallurgical grade silicon. And this is kind of a larger particle silicon. And so they can only limit a very small amount of that material to be able to to to to be stable in a current graphite based, you know, chemistry. And so the to be able to incorporate more silicon and replace more graphite to with the goal to be able, you know, by increasing the amount of silicon, you're increasing your the energy density of the battery as well as the fast charging capabilities. But to be able to do that, that material needs to be able to be stable. And so that's the big challenge. I think that everyone is really at this point now really trying to scale up is, you know, metallurgical grade silicon is made every day. However, being able to make it at that nano scale and with porosity is really the key.

11:25And so, yeah, we feel that, you know, because we're already starting with a nano silica that is a nano tube of the kind of perfect dimensions and characteristics, the the the the steps of scaling that up is significantly simplified using our, you know, in our process here because of that, because of that ideal feedstock that we, you know, that we possess. And I should also mention that we also control our deposit as well. So we're one of the only vertically integrated producers of nano silicon materials. Andriy, could you hone in a little bit more about what is the advantage of using the haloy, the haloy site as a feedstock? So I know you touched a little bit on the material is porous. It's it's it allows you to perform reduction steps a lot easier. But could you explain a little bit further? What are the pain points associated with using or with the production of other nano silicons versus with your feedstock? Sure. Jake, I think this would be a good good place for you to kind of chime in here and talk about some of the work you've done with, you know, in your PhD with others, you know, silica sources and kind of what we're seeing with our material.

12:52And this is a perfectly up your alley to describe. Yeah, that's great. I can tell you that no problem. So, yeah, what we've sort of just to summarize ionic key advantages into key two advantages. Simply, it's the control of the haloy site feedstock and then the the patented patent pending process that we have to convert that feedstock into a silicon battery material. And and so the process that we use is a reduction process where you can start with a silica SiO2. You put it through a reduction process typically with a metal. The metal removes the oxygen from the SiO2 to create a metal oxide. And what you're left with then is silicon, silicon metal as your product. And and what how the process is unique is if done correctly, all these steps are performed under the melting point of all of the silica feedstock and the silicon product. And so what what allows you to do is to maintain the structure of the feedstock in the final product.

14:12So you can effectively start with a nanotube or a nanomaterial, reduce it and it can keep its nanomorphology without melting and creating these big larger particles, which is not what we want for battery applications. And so there's been quite a lot of work done on many different natural and synthetic silica sources for this process. And we've we've looked at many different sources here at Ionic as well. And but the the heloisite itself as it comes out of the ground, it's a naturally occurring nanotube. And so it's it's roughly 50 nanometers in diameter, 500 nanometers to 1000 nanometers in length. And it's hollow in the center. So it's really a nano tube, 50 nanometers in diameter. But the center of the tube, 30 nanometers is hollow. And and so it's really a naturally occurring feedstock that we can obtain in large volumes. And we can put it through this our proprietary process to create a nano silicon battery material at the other side as our product.

15:25And it's really the nano scale properties, the heloisite that are that are key. So, yeah, hopefully that answered your question. But I believe it does. Yeah. Thank you so much, Jake. What I learned from that is that you're able to actually produce your silicon metal as an end product using a process. That is less energy intensive. It's performed under the melting point that you can actually maintain a feed the feedstock structure that you care about, which is the nano tube. So that is sort of in my mind. The value proposition is that your manufacturing process able to maintain or preserve a structure that is difficult to to recreate. Using different feedstocks. Yeah. Other than yours. Yeah. I think to sort of go into that a little more is this sort of nano morphology. We have a up down approach, but this same structure is being produced by our peers in a bottom up approach. So they'll try and produce the morphology that we can get from the heloisite by synthesizing silicon with siline gas as their feedstock.

16:41And we can perhaps go into that further later in the call. But yeah, our process on top of that is performed at much lower temperatures, much lower energy intensity. And ultimately that gives us an advantage as well in the final material where these sort of emissions that we produce to produce a ton of this material are projected to be very low. So thank you, Jake. Andre and Jake, is there anything else you'd like to introduce us to? I know there's a bunch of questions that the audience already has and we have a bunch of questions, too, but would love for you to introduce us to whatever ideas you'd like to before we jump into the Q&A. Sure. I'll just maybe just mention one more thing here, too, that I think, you know, there's you know, there's there's also an incredibly attractive, you know, financial aspect of what we're doing as well here, too, because, you know, versus starting with a let's say a silane gas, for example, or, you know, the you know, being able to start with a mineral, you know, is, you know, is one thing to be able to make.

17:57To be able to make a great, you know, anode material, but to be able, you know, at the nano scale, however, being able to do it economically is really the key. Right. And so the and to be able to have an abundant feedstock source is also what's, you know, what's important, I think, to industry. And so just to kind of, you know, mention that and just to kind of look just to let you know where we are commercially, we're currently we're currently in the process of we have a 36,000 square foot manufacturing facility that's under construction that will be complete in September of this year. And we have we have plans to be scaling into our first 2000 tons of manufacturing of silicon production, you know, starting in Q1 of 2024. So the, you know, in a relatively short period of time, we've been able to kind of commission our pilot plant, demonstrate our technology and and quickly move into, you know, quickly move into, you know, into production with significantly less capex than some of the, you know, alternative technologies.

19:13So I'll kind of leave it there and welcome any questions that you guys have. Congratulations, Andre. And we do have a few questions here in the chat. And I know Simon has a few questions as well. So why don't we address some of the questions in the chat first? Simon, what do you think? Sure. And also if the people want to come come on stage and ask themselves, we could definitely invite them as well to see if you have to. Otherwise, let us know in the chat and we can ask the questions for you as well. Yeah. So Sanas and Mark, if you would like to be invited to the stage to ask your questions, just raise your hands and we'll invite you up. Or in fact, I could invite you and you could either accept or decline. And in the meantime, as we're waiting for that, Simon, if you have a few other questions. Absolutely. No, I think it's great. So I see a hand up there, but maybe one before.

20:11Because whenever you bring something new, like you want to bring something new to the market, right? I mean, I guess always there's sort of other players as well and questions. And I think before going maybe in, you know, maybe more questionals like costs and reliability and things. But one thing I'm wondering is from applications, because I've been looking at that a bit as well from a silicon perspective. Of course, you know, it's quite common, right? If companies are using, you know, some percent of silicon in the anodes, I think it's quite well, you know, managed at this point. You mentioned as well, there's like higher percent you can go. We have seen up to 100% or so more for, I think, Amperios, right? And more like more airborne applications. And I think there's some public information on Amperios and Airbus and things like that. So just here it's quite interesting, right? You can go to very high silicon amounts, et cetera. So I'm wondering from your market segmentation, like where do you think, you know, something like what are you developing?

21:09What are you looking at most? Is it more like an automotive sector where there maybe is a smaller percentage of silicon? But it's a big volume, of course, but maybe also quite tricky to enter because we know the automotive market can be quite challenging. From getting all the approvals and reliability as it lasts a very long time or are you looking more like at niche markets, which may be a bit less stringent, but less volumes, but maybe easier to capture. I'm just wondering. That's a great question. Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, the answer to the question simply is that we're looking at all the markets where, you know, where nano silicon, you know, delivers a, you know, significant, you know, solution to an unmet need. And from an overall market perspective, we see that the biggest need from the, you know, the biggest need that is from the electric vehicle market, again, because of the fast charging that nano silicon, you know, enables as well as the longer range that's needed.

22:05You know, that said, you know, military applications for sure are, you know, a perfect example of a big need that nano silicon can also address there. So, for example, there, I mean, there are certain, you know, applications military where now you can use nano silicon for lightweighting, right? So, completely different need here than the electric vehicle per se, because let's say if there's, you know, wearables, for example, you know, the, you know, the anode, you can reduce the weight of the anode by almost 90% to get to the same, you know, the same, you know, energy, you know, density of the battery. Right. And so the, so being able to reduce weight is another big thing and also be able to fast charge, you know, at the same time or drones, you know, that need to, you know, carry heavy loads and whatnot. And now the battery, if you can reduce, you know, the anode part of the battery by 90% of its weight, that's, that's another big kind of a big need that's the nano silicon can address.

23:14Electronics for sure, very, you know, in high power, you know, high performance type, you know, applications, power tools, you know, where using, you know, perhaps using, making a hundred percent nano silicon, you know, type of battery will, you know, deliver another big, you know, big need is also, you know, you know, an area that we're focused on as well. So we're not just, I think, as far as a market perspective, the biggest driver need is the, is from the electric vehicle, you know, side of things, but that doesn't mean it's the only market that, you know, could benefit from this. And, and we're, we're, we're certainly engaged with, you know, in all of these applications currently. And for what it's worth, also, there was, there was, there was, there's projections. From, you know, benchmark minerals, as well as transparency market research. And there was a, that the silicon anode market is expected to grow from $1.2 billion today till about $208 billion by 2032. So, I mean, it's a staggering kind of example of a hugely unmet market need.

24:27And then also bringing in the fact that, you know, graphite, you know, graphite is kind of the only material that if, if there was any tensions with China, where China were to kind of cut off, you know, the rest of the world from, you know, from graphite would completely devastate the entire electrification movement. You can get lithium and you can get lithium iron phosphate and you can get, you know, sorry, LFP type, you know, batteries as well. I mean, there's, you know, there's the other battery materials are kind of, are out there, but graphite is one that is completely dominated by China. And so there's, I think also a really big need from a, you know, I guess U.S. independence, you know, standpoint here to develop anode materials as well that can, you know, partially substitute or completely substitute, you know, graphite in our current, you know, current chemistries. Great. Thanks. Thanks for sharing that. That's a good point, right? I mean, here's also interesting with, because you mentioned graphite, right?

25:30Like natural graphite and artificial graphites. And, you know, I think there's interesting developments as well. And I guess that's a bit of the route you're also taking to present my potential alternative, right? To synthetic silicates or nanosystems. Mark, thanks for joining. Would you maybe like to ask you a question? Hi, Mark. Are you able to unmute yourself? Otherwise, Mayam, would you like to ask for Zana's question on this behalf? Yes, absolutely. So I'll ask Zana's question, which is in the chat. Zana's is asking, what do you think about the future SI mix with GR or using composite SI GR? Which one would win the completion and also about the cost of nanoscale SI? That's a good question. That's a great question. You know, there's, you know, if you look at the markets outside of, you know, what the U.S. is doing, I mean, in China, China is really, their focus is on developing, you know, silicon carbon, you know, type, you know, composite material. As is, you know, some of the U.S. peers, they're making silicon composite, you know, materials.

26:41And the way we see, you know, the way this is another kind of advantage of what we're doing here. I mean, we're making a hundred percent silicon, you know, drop in, you know, powder. And so essentially we're giving the customer the opportunity to, you know, substitute as, you know, much of the graphite that they want to, you know, be able to do. But I don't see a situation where, at least any time in the near future where someone is going to be making a silicon graphite, you know, composite material that will be sold and be used as a hundred percent, you know, anode material, at least in the electric vehicle market. So we would see that, you know, probably typically what we are seeing already is that even some of the silicon carbon composites that are being, you know, produced from, you know, China, let's say, which, you know, that's going to be dropped into an existing graphite, you know, type chemistry. Chemistry. So the capacity is not as high, you know, when you're, when you've got a silicon carbon composite.

27:55And so, so the, so to answer your question more specifically here, you know, from what, from our standpoint, we think that's all going to be used, you know, for sure. I mean, it currently is being used right now, you know, silicon carbon composites. But I think the, the, the, the big, to give the customer the ability to take a pure silicon and mix it with the graphite, you know, themselves and substitute the graphite themselves, I think gives the customer the, the most flexibility in being able to utilize the material. And to put it in perspective, you know, our gen one, you know, product, if you add 15, you substitute graphite with 15%, we're basically doubling the capacity of the anode, you know, going from 350 to about 700, you know, stable, you know, capacity, just with a 15% substitution. Most of the, and that's because our, our material, our initial pure silicon materials got about a 3,200 MAHG initial discharge capacity with about an 85% ICE.

29:05So, you know, you know, call it, you know, you know, 28 to 2900 stable capacity material by itself. When you let that down into a graphite, you can use much less to get a significantly more, you know, bump, a significantly larger bump in capacity where some of the silicon carbon composites that we're seeing out there are, you've got more of a, more like a 1500 MAHG initial discharge capacity. So when that's being let down at the same percentage, we'll only have about, you know, half the improvement in the, in a graphite, you know, composite material or versus our material at the same loading levels. So from a cost standpoint, the it's hard to answer that question on a generic basis because, you know, I think that every different process has a different, a different, a different cost. And that's one where, or we feel like because of our continuous process and also being vertically integrated, we can actually price our material. Once we come to market with it, we'll, we'll be able to price our material on a kind of an equivalent, you know, cost of synthetic graphite on a MAHG basis.

30:28So I'm hoping that answers your question. It seems like it does. Asana's just said, thanks in the chat. Mark, are you able to ask your question or should we ask it for you? I see his question. Yeah. So what do you do? What do you do with the anode scrap? But Mark, I'm happy to. So yeah, Mark, Mark is asking, what do you do with the anode scrap? Can you reuse it? Yeah. There'd be no reason that we wouldn't be able to, to, to reuse it. We're, we're hoping to, to have very little scrap, you know, you know, to begin with, but whatever we do, you know, have, you know, in scrap, we, we definitely can, you know, reuse it for sure in our process. Thanks, Andre. I, Mark, I hope that answers your question. If you have an additional follow-up, feel free to unmute or ask it in the chat as well. And Goto asked, being B2B, what's your sales cycle like? So we're, right now we're, we're, we're scaling up, you know, what, you know, from pilot to, to production.

31:30We have, we're working with several, you know, strategic end users of this. And so, you know, what does the sales cycle look like? So luckily, I mean, the, the market is in need of this material. It's, it's an under, you know, it's a unmet need at this point. So there's not a, there's not a lot of convincing we need to do, you know, with a lot of the cell manufacturers or, or EV manufacturers. They already kind of made significant investments on their own to be able to, you know, utilize the anosilicon. However, the, the sales cycle is really, it's just, you know, taking material from, you know, from, you know, half cells to full cells to pouch cells to, you know, to, you know, to making full batteries and making sure that the, you know, that the cycle stability is there and reproducibility is there. So, you know, you know, I don't think that our sales cycle is, you know, would be any different than any other, you know, active material producer, you know, getting a, you know, development product into the market.

32:42Thank you, Andre. So anyone have any other questions, feel free to put in the chat. Simon and I do have a couple more questions. My question is, I'm just curious about your performance testing. Do you have to actually build out battery cells or battery packs to test for the performance of your materials or as a materials developer, you have a different type of process for that? You want to answer that one? Yes, sure. So we're currently have some in-house testing capabilities here at Ionic. They're limited to coin cell testing. And we sort of envision that we'll always have those in-house testing just from a quality control perspective on our material, even when we go into production. But at the moment, they're being used primarily as a research tool. So we can, one thing that we've perhaps not touched on is we can actually make a really wide range of nanosilicon materials with our processing feedstock. And so they may go into slightly different applications depending on their properties.

33:56So we currently have those capabilities in-house. We also have collaborations with cell manufacturers and some vehicle OEM manufacturers where they're taking our materials in collaboration with us. And we're producing larger format cells currently and testing our material in those, so pouched shells primarily. Yeah, yeah. I'll add to that, too, also. I mean, we're really big on, you know, characterization of materials. And as Jake mentioned, you know, we, just with our process, the ability to tailor, you know, nanosilicon based on, you know, we can make materials that are 200 square meter per gram to five square meter per gram surface areas, and port porosities that are 300 percent to 10 percent to, you know, particle size distributions that are, you know, kind of, you know, across the curve. And all of those things really, you know, play a key role in how the material actually performs in a, you know, in a battery. But, you know, with the, you know, each run that we do, you know, is met with, you know, we're doing XRF on every single sample.

35:09We're doing XRD, BET, you know, set of graph particle size distribution, measuring conductivity, pH, slurry rheology. And then, you know, then after that, after everything is done there, that's when we, you know, make the, make cells. And so, as Jake mentioned, that'll be our, you know, that'll be our quality control protocol. But we have all those capabilities in-house here to, you know, to ensure that the reproducibility of materials is of highest importance. That's great. I think, as you say, right, from a material standpoint, especially when you use natural materials, you have to ensure this. But maybe I can challenge you a little bit on this one with the, also, Jake, what you mentioned on the coin cells, right? Because these, I remember a bit from, from my Cambridge days and, you know, looking at nanomaterials, also silicons and, you know, challenges with electrolyte and, you know, high surface area and eating up electrolyte and maybe also higher rates where you fry your silicon a bit maybe.

36:16And, you know, resistance and heat develop and all these things where coin cells tend to be quite forgiving in a way because it really depends on how you load them, right? Like, if you give them excess electrolyte, which is, of course, you can also limit a bit more. And also, maybe do you go more full cells? And, you know, how, you know, how are you trying to simulate as much to, let's say, a cylindrical gain 650 in full cell? So I'm just curious whether you understand it better because I think there's always an interesting time, right? Like, interesting step. How do you go from something where you validate it maybe more on the basic level? But then, of course, there's a lot of, you know, challenges to go to the next step. So I'm just curious about maybe all these steps you have taken there or are you approaching it and how you're seeing it? Yeah, I think that's a great question. And I think a lot of those challenges are sort of maybe not well known, but it's certainly a known challenge.

37:08And so that's just the stage that we're currently at. I don't know if Andre mentioned, but we came out of stealth mode about 10 months ago now. And that was with the commissioning of our pilot plant and in-house battery testing. And so this is sort of how far we've come in that time. We're hoping to add our in-house, well, to expand our in-house testing capabilities to pouch cells in the near future. But to answer your question, I think in the meantime, we're kind of thus far successfully and hopefully ongoing leveraging sort of expertise with our partners, ultimately with customers for this material who have shown a lot of interest. where we can leverage a lot of their specialist expertise, not just in cell manufacturing, but also silicon specifically. And I know you mentioned electrolytes, such an important component. Every component's important. And what we like to say is that every nanosilicon is different. And all these individual challenges of electrolyte and electrode manufacturing, they all exist for all nanosilicon materials.

38:23But each time the challenge is slightly different. So to be able to work with people who have expertise in this area, I think that's been super valuable for us. Dan, if you have another comment, Andre? Yeah, I think that just to add to that too, Simon, you're 100% right. I mean, silicon has been a challenging material for quite some time here, especially at full substitution of graphite. And so I think what we've really been focused on, you know, up to this point, it was let's make, you know, let's optimize our process to be able to make the most stable nanosilicon material that we can make with the highest capacity that we can make. And then from there, take that material now and scale that into pouch cells and full cells. And so we've kind of established that. And as Jake mentioned, the next steps are, you know, working, you know, both internally as well as with, you know, outside partners, you know, on this. And I think that at the end of the day, I mean, one of the things that we see that's kind of unique, you know, about our silicon is having it in that nanotube structure.

39:37All right. So, you know, I think that's kind of unique, you know, versus a spherical silicon. A spherical silicon is going to swell in all directions, where if you've got a kind of hollow nanotubular silicon, the material swells about half the rate that a spherical one will because of its kind of one dimension. So half of the swelling takes place inside the hollow tube and the other half on the outside. And so that's been something that's been measured and, you know, compared. And so that makes it, you know, easier. But then there's also other things, too, obviously, as you well know, that we may, you know, look at as far as, like, you know, carbon coating the material, you know, by atomic layer deposition or other types of coatings that are, you know, that would only, you know, start to improve the long-term, you know, capacity retention. And so for sure, there's, you know, there's still a lot of work to do. But the ability for us to be able to kind of tailor our process, to be able to make, to really kind of tailor the morphology and tailor the properties of the silicon itself, I think, kind of give us a bit of an advantage in being able to get there relatively, you know, quicker, I would say.

41:04Thanks for sharing. And I think, I mean, it's interesting, right? And I think also both, again, from my arms and my perspective, right? I mean, both, you know, so, you know, having our own startups with Placenex, from my arm and Patrick Associates for me is that I think, you know, we are always very interested, you know, how, you know, how companies start, you know, from maybe an idea and how they develop in a commercial product. And one thing I find quite interesting is, and I think I agree with what you're saying, right? Like, if you can get a customer to do a lot of the hard work for you, I mean, that's, that's one of the best, you know, positions you can be in. The thing I find interesting, and it's maybe also, you know, honest question on that and maybe get your sense, you know, feeling on that. Because we have definitely seen, like, I remember the times, you know, maybe five, six years ago or so where quite a lot of, you know, people around me would start, you know, startups in the battery space and maybe materials or more processes or, you know, all kinds of, you know, cool hard tech.

41:58And there was always the thought, like, if you just have something cool, people will just, you know, again, like, want to try it out and implement it in their materials, etc. But essentially, most of these are like, pretty much all of the cases I know, at least from the time, that's also about how maybe it feels now, they all had to really go in commercial, the scale, like commercial scale from production, but getting commercial form factors. What I mean, again, 18650, or at least some pouches, probably even more standardized, cylindrical if possible. And again, they didn't have to do it in house, they just gave it to other, you know, contract manufacturer, and they would assemble for them. And of course, you need a good one. That's another topic. Yeah. Because then you have to optimize it, and you have to find the right electrolytes and make sure it matches your cathode and its balance. And again, it gets complicated. And it's, of course, money.

42:44So I'm just curious, sorry for the long-binding question. Yeah. Like, how are you seeing right now? Do you feel like the market has appetite and seems rather open to kind of test something new and, again, do a bit of the legwork for you? Or do you think, at the end of the day, you really have to go through the steps you mentioned, power sales, et cetera? That's a great question. From our perspective, I mean, I think it's kind of a testament to the unmet need for silicon. The market has a huge appetite. That said, I'll give you kind of our experience with being able to get that interest. And most of the companies that we're working with right now, and unfortunately we can't say who, but these are major players in the industry that have been around for a long time and know what they're doing. But, you know, we could, they could care less if we sent them a sample that was, you know, the best material they've ever seen in their life.

43:54And perfect, and perfect, and everything like that. They don't care so much about that if that's been made on a process that's not commercial or scalable or safe. Right. And so they would rather see a material from a company that maybe the material isn't perfect, you know, yet. However, the process is scalable. It can be done economically. It's a safe process. It's a, it's environmentally friendly, you know, process. That's, that's where, you know, I think the, the, the hurdle, you know, is, you know, at least in our space and, and, you know, what we need to, you know, what we've had to kind of need to demonstrate, you know, to, to, to get them there. And once, once they know that that's the case, they obviously know that there's expertise that they have within their, you know, themselves that could actually only be accretive to, you know, to what, you know, to what we're doing because they've, you know, many of these companies have their own IP on, you know, on making nano silicon, you know, work.

45:08And graphite blends or by itself, or, you know, certain types of coatings, you know, so it kind of enables them to be able to renew some of their unique capabilities and, you know, knowledge. The important thing is that there's a material that can be reproduced, you know, on a commercial basis. And so with that, that's been kind of the uniform conventional, you know, feedback that we've seen from, you know, from companies, you know, that we're working with at this point that I hope that answers your question. Yeah, for sure. And I really liked that clip. And I think that's definitely overlays with definitely also what I've seen from other startups, as you say, like, it has really been about the scalability of things as a limiting factor. And how this has been prioritized at times over maybe, as you say, to get the best performance in the beginning. But as you say, like, if you cannot figure out the process limit, but it's interesting, right?

46:09Because there's definitely, if you look in the market, there's both approaches available, right? And you're definitely able to choose from either and maybe approach either. And often probably what both companies will do is actually entertain all directions, right? As long as they get the hand on something which succeeds either both, but both in performance as well as in scalability, right? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think, you know, these, these labs are incredibly busy, right? You know, looking at not just anode material, cathode material, separators, electrolytes, you know, so many different, you know, different things. Also qualifying, you know, new sources, especially in the US, right? I mean, qualifying new sources of, of materials and trying to, you know, determine which, you know, which companies have a, you know, a process that, you know, they can kind of get behind here. So, yeah, I think the, the commercial, the commercial feasibility of, of a new material coming to a market is, is, is, is definitely from, again, our experience, you know, the biggest, you know, the biggest driver.

47:16Of course, the material has to work, right? I mean, it has to show, you know, signs that, okay, this is something that, you know, this can, this looks good. They, you know, the material, is it pure? Is it reproducible? Is it, you know, is it, you know, consistent? You know, consistent. So these are the types of things I think that really help get the buy-in from the commercial partners, which I think anyone developing any new generation or, or next generation material for, you know, electric vehicles, even in current generation, you know, it is, I think, crucial to the commercialization has to be done in conjunction with, you know, with an end user, you know, or, you know, a, a strategic partner, you know, I think without, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're really limited, you know, and because even a, a contract research lab can, can do prototypes and things like that. And that, you know, that's obviously helpful and needed. But when you can develop it with the customer, that's, I think that's really, you know, increases your probability of success in a significant way.

48:27It's not always easy to get there, you know, so. Thank you, Andre. I think one last question pertaining to the commercial feasibility, actually, this is a very interesting process. And, and it seems like, you know, Simon's been, been interested, and it seems also Nagoto's question a little bit is, is implying or asking about that. With, uh, Pulsenix, which is a company that, um, uh, I've co-founded, uh, we develop characterization tools. So whenever we work with clients, they actually want to do a test run usually. And they have specific metrics associated with, uh, evaluating the tool that they'd like to look at things like measurement, accuracy, and consistencies, and drift, and so on, so forth. For you, what does that look like as a materials company? And what are they benchmarking your performance against? Is it other nano silicon materials, um, you know, from potential, uh, competitors and so on? Are you creating the benchmark, um, in terms of what you should be meeting in terms of performance metrics or are they?

49:35Um, I think it's a little bit of both. Um, you know, I think that, you know, there are some companies that we're working with that have already utilized, um, is already utilizing commercially some silicon in their batteries. Um, and so there are, you know, tests that we do that are kind of mimicking, you know, the, the existing cell chemistry that they're using at this, right? It's same loadings and whatnot. And, uh, and so, um, so there's, there's, there's, there's situations like that. And then there's, you know, other situations where, yeah, I think it's more of a, you know, their target is to be able to hit a certain maHg, you know, you know, with a, you know, um, you know, to get a certain improvement for their next generation batteries and, and, uh, you know, how much of our material do we need to substitute in graphite to be able to get it there? Um, and, um, you know, some people have completely different, you know, um, have IP on, you know, um, on their actual cell design, right?

50:43Where they can use significantly less binder or conductive additives and incorporate, you know, much more silicon because the, the cell design is, you know, enables it to be able to, you know, handle swelling, you know, um, and they're, you know, looking more for, you know, high energy density, you know, um, and high capacity type battery, you know, uh, performance. So, yeah, it's a little bit, you know, different across the board, but the, um, I think that, you know, at the end of the day, the most important thing that they're looking for is how does it perform in a battery? Right. And then, you know, is it reproducible? Is it stable? Um, because clearly, you know, one sample is not going to be the, the, you know, the, the only one that goes, you're going to have one sample. Then the, then the next sample is going to be a larger one. Then the no-nots is going to be even larger than that. And so, you know, obviously knowing that you've got your material characterized, you know, essentially, as I mentioned earlier, what we do is every single sample we send out goes through extensive, you know, quality control testing, um, again, from XRF, XRD, BET, and we also do a, you know, and we also do, you know, make a battery as well. We're not just, you know, chucking samples over the fence here without a full evaluation of the material before we let it go. And so, um, so yeah, I think that, you know, the, I think that's very important, you know, I think to them as well, um, to know that you've got the ability to, to, to consistently produce product and that you're also not using their R and D time to, to do that work for you. Um, you know, that shows a commitment to your quality of your product and also to, you know, to their, to their precious R and D resources as well. So, um, that's what we do on our side. Um, you know, and what we intended to do, you know, at every scale that we, we, you know, we scale into.

52:46Brilliant. Thank you. And I think with this one, we are, we're getting towards the end of the time, but I want to, we want to thank you both, Andre and Jake, for, for sharing your insight with us. And I think, you know, we're always rooting for the startups. We're wishing you all the, all the best on the journey. And we know it's not always easy in this, as any startup, but I think it's eventually anywhere you go into tech, there's always, you know, wins and challenges. And, um, well, you saw these good, you know, things together, but really, really appreciating your sharing insights and your experience so far. And hopefully we see you in some other settings as well and see your updates and hopefully progressing through it. Um, I also, we want to thank everyone joining today and thanks for, for your questions and, and engaging. And again, anybody also listening to all of the, the platforms such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, anywhere else. If you're looking for this, you can look for Battery Insiders. That's the name of the podcast. And this was a Battery Evolution Clubhouse session today.

53:36And yeah, if you want to get notified about any of these sessions, you can also go on batteryinsiders.com and, um, sign up to the new email newsletter, email notification, and you get a location for video, any of these sessions as well. But yeah, with this again, thanks also to Andre and Jake, as well as Mariam for co-hosting today and wishing you all a wonderful weekend. Thank you, Simon. Thank you, Miriam. And thank you everyone for, uh, for attending. We really, uh, appreciated the, uh, the good questions and the opportunity to, um, you know, to introduce ourselves to you all. So, um, thank you again, wish you all a great weekend and we'll, uh, look forward to, uh, speaking again soon, hopefully. Yes. Thank you both for having us on. Thank you Andre and Jake. Uh, have a great rest of your day everyone. Weekend actually. Bye everyone. Bye. Bye-bye.