OneD Begins Construction of its First Pilot Plants to Provide Cost-Effective Silicon Soln for EV Anode Manufacturing

The plants follow a significant industry milestone by OneD. Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder, Dr. Yimin Zhu, successfully led his team to break the cost barrier in attaching greater quantities of silicon into EV batteries ­– at a cost far below industry expectations. Now, the energy storage capacity of SINANODE's silicon nanowires is so efficient that cell cost per kilowatt hour actually declines as silicon content and energy density increase.

"Each SINANODE pilot uses one CVD machine which will produce up to 340 MWh per year at a variable cost of about $1.20/kWh," notes Andrew Leyland, Head of Strategic Advisory at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. 

The facilities provides Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) dedicated space to create differentiated anodes using the SINANODE STEP, a truly drop-in process, disrupting neither the existing graphite supplier (natural or synthetic) nor the coating method (wet slurry or dry electrode coating).

Dr. Zhu's technology team's innovations deliver more silicon energy storage within EV cells' anodes without the typical complexities and drawbacks that come with silicon-oxide particle additives (currently in a few EV models).

"Many in the auto and battery industries have perceived silicon nanowires to be too expensive for the mass production of EV batteries. It's time to recalibrate the conversation and demonstrate the impact this technology is making today in delivering better EV batteries to be on the road by 2025," said Fabrice Hudry, OneD's Chief Commercial Officer. 

Each building of the pilot facility will be equipped to deliver the end-to-end processing of commercial graphite powders. Using inexpensive precursors, the plant will have the capacity to deliver pre-production annual capacity of batteries for up to 3,400 EVs per CVD machine.