Vancouver-based battery expertise agency Nano One has snapped up one among North America’s few working battery materials manufacturing websites, agreeing to buy Johnson Matthey Battery Supplies Canada and its cathode materials plant in Candiac, Que. for roughly $10.3 million.
The deal for Johnson Matthey’s Canadian battery unit consists of the British chemical agency’s roughly nine-acre (four-hectare) property in Candiac, a Montreal suburb on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. The plant, which occupies about one-tenth of the location, together with its tools and its group, can even switch to Nano One as a part of the deal.
The battery materials plant was in-built 2012 and produces cathode energetic materials (CAM) for lithium iron phosphate batteries, a sort of lithium-ion battery more and more frequent in electrical automobiles made in China however simply starting to make headway in North American EVs.
Nano One CEO Dan Blondal mentioned the “quickly increasing” want for North America-produced CAM will give the corporate a chance to change into a frontrunner within the trade, with the acquisition expediting the agency’s scale-up.
“Skilled workers are on the core of this deal and can assist fast-track Nano One’s studying curve,” he mentioned in a launch. “The ability is in Higher Montreal and strategically situated in proximity to workers and their households, worldwide airports, main port services and is a essential hyperlink within the mines-to-mobility initiative.”
Blondal added the Quebec plant is already commercially confirmed, delivery product to a variety of shoppers, embody Tier 1 automotive suppliers, over the previous decade. Whereas LFP batteries have taken off within the Chinese language EV market prior to now couple years, the expertise was first commercialized in Quebec.
Johnson Matthey bought the CAM plant, plus associated belongings comparable to mental property and a German analysis facility, from Switzerland’s Clariant AG for US$75 million in 2015. Final November, nevertheless, it introduced its intention to exit the battery enterprise on account of a strategic evaluation.
The Quebec plant has capability to provide 2,400 tonnes of LFP cathode materials per 12 months, a comparatively modest quantity in comparison with bigger scale services at present being developed within the province.
In March, BASF introduced plans to construct a brand new battery supplies facility at a web site in Bécancour that would produce as much as 100 kilotonnes of CAM annually. Basic Motors and companion Posco Chemical introduced a $500 million CAM plant funding at a separate web site in Bécancour a number of days later, although the three way partnership didn’t launch particulars on the ability’s capability.
Nano One can even be integrating its personal expertise on the decade-old Quebec plant.
The Vancouver-based agency has developed a “one-pot” course of for producing CAM that eliminates various processing steps usually required to prepared key metals to be used in batteries. The streamlined course of, the corporate says, is each cheaper and extra environmentally pleasant than the strategy most battery materials companies are utilizing to provide CAM.
The Quebec facility, Nano One mentioned, can serve its new course of and supply “room to increase.” The corporate is already collaborating with greater than a dozen automakers on integrating its battery supplies into their provide chains, however has produced materials solely in restricted portions so far. It had deliberate to scale up its course of to the business scale this 12 months.
The deal for Johnson Matthey’s Canadian battery belongings is anticipated to shut later this 12 months.