China dominates the graphite market, but nanosilicon does the job better.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Andre Zeitoun, founder and CEO of Ionic Mineral Technologies, shows off a piece of mined halloysite that will be processed into nano-silica powder to increase battery performance at the company’s manufacturing facility in Provo on Friday, November 17, 2023.
This story is part of The Salt Lake Tribune’s ongoing commitment to identify solutions to Utah’s biggest challenges through the work of the Innovation Lab.
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There is more graphite in a lithium car battery than anything else, and China produces almost all the graphite that is used.
A Utah company believes it has an alternative, and it has tons of the material sitting on the ground in Juab County.
The alternative is nanosilicon, and it’s not just a substitute for graphite. The material is 10 times more efficient at holding the battery and can be recharged in a fraction of the time.
“This means that basically you will now have a car that can go 50% longer and also be able to fully charge in under 10 minutes,” said André Zeitoun, founder and CEO of Ionic Mineral Technologies.
With a new processing facility in Provo, Zeitoun’s company has plans to produce up to 20,000 tons of nanosilicon annually from mines it owns in Juab County, in what could become a multibillion-dollar industry employing hundreds of people.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Max Yan, a chemical engineer for Ionic Mineral Technologies, closes part of a thermal reduction machine used to produce nano-silicon at the company’s Provo manufacturing facility on Friday, Nov. 17, 2023.
The advantages of nanosilicon in lithium batteries have been known for some time, but it is not widely used. Silicon must be reduced to an incredibly fine powder (grains smaller than 5 nanometers, or five billionths of a meter) to be considered nanosilicon. This is an expensive process. Synthetic nanosilicon can fetch $135,000 a ton, Zeitoun said.
But in the hills north of the historic mining town of Eureka, about 90 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, Ionic MT has a handful of open-pit mines with deposits of “halloysite,” a mineral ore that contains both silicon and aluminum.
“Halloysite has a natural nanostructure. The concept is that they can take advantage of this nanostructure,” said University of Utah metallurgy professor Zach Fang. Fang leads the US Powder Research Laboratory, which performed preliminary proof-of-concept work on Zeiton and Ionic MT.
“He didn’t have a big lab at the time. Now he’s built his own lab,” said Zach, who described Ionic’s approach as “promising.”
Graphite functions as the battery’s anode, where the lithium ions are in solution when the battery is charged. When power is needed, the lithium ions migrate to the cathode, generating an electric current.
As Zang explains, graphite makes a good anode because its crystal structure has thin layers between which lithium ions can fit. Silicon, on the other hand, does not have this structure. When normal silicon is used as an anode, it will swell as it absorbs lithium ions during charging, which can destroy the battery. Reduction of
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Ionic Mineral Technologies’ open-pit halloysite mine is seen near Eureka on Friday, Nov. 17, 2023.
nanoscale silicon particles minimize swelling.
Halloysite from the company’s mines contains silicon “nanotubes,” a naturally occurring nanostructure. Using a proprietary process, they remove the aluminum while preserving the nanotubes.
“So now we’ve created a material that everyone is trying to make synthetically from the bottom up,” Zeitoun said. “We went from top to bottom and figured out how to scale it down while keeping that structure.”
Both Fang and Zeitoun said battery makers can also combine graphite and nanosilicon in a battery at any percentage, allowing them to slowly add the benefits of nanosilicon while retaining the cost advantages of graphite.
Zeitoun said the company is vertically integrated because it owns both the mine’s raw materials and the process and facilities to make the nano-silicon battery ready to go. The company recently opened a 37,000-square-foot processing facility in Provo, where the aluminum will be removed. Zeitoun said aluminum is also a critical mineral in high demand and will be sold.
He added that Ionic MT, which is a private company, will soon announce an agreement with a major battery manufacturer.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Keith Brooks, COO of Ionic Mineral Technologies, performs quality control evaluations of nano-silicon powder to increase battery performance at the company’s Provo manufacturing facility on Friday, Nov. 17 2023.
The company is starting with a target of producing 2,000 tonnes of nano-silica per year when it starts processing ore in the third quarter of 2024, with plans to increase to 20,000 tonnes per year. Given the high cost of synthetic nanosilicon, the company has the potential for billions of dollars in revenue. It would also bring millions in tax revenue to the state.
The company currently employs 10 people, including two scientists who received their PhDs working on the process. Once the company reaches its goal of 20,000 tons a year, it could potentially hire hundreds of people, Zeitoun said.
