RE:New InterviewThanks to @ordos for the summary of the interview (better formatting here):
Battery SiOx material - 150 cycles and above is where things get serious in the battery world
- Commercially available top performing 18650 batteries out there right now (Samsung, Panasonic, etc) by 150th cycle degrade between 11 to 21%, and we are only at 2%. That is massive
- Other companies that do similar R&D in battery materials are not being as transparent as HPQ Silicon, which shows the progression of results and explain what the progression mean
- In the battery world, you cannot assume that if a battery is doing well at 100 cyles it will perform as well at 150 cycles, that's why you have to continue testing
- Some battery manufacturers in the battery are going to bigger size batteries trying to match what we are doing
- Since 2015 the 18650 batteries, which are widely used, haven't gone higher than ~3,000 mAh
- We are seeing similar interest now as with fumed silica when we published the images of the produced fumed silica material.
We ended up signing NDAs with all the major fumed silica producers in the world within several months. Now we are being approached by senior synthetic graphite producers that are showing massive interest with us because there is such a synergy. Synthetic graphite is now taking over natural graphite. Non-chineese synthetic graphite manufacturers will need to be more competitive, because it is more expensive to produce as the labour is more expensive
- Battery SiOx market is much bigger than fumed silica
- The most performing 18650 batteries out there lose 20% of their capacity by 300th cycle. By the time HPQ Silicon's battery goes down 20% capacity, they are still going to be at significantly above 3,000 mAh mark
- We end up doing everything from quartz conversion to silicon metal and then to the SiOx for batteries in a low carbon environment
- NDAs are going to come much faster than end of the year, there is room for multiple LOIs by the end of the year
- Gen3 no longer accelerates degradation rate at 150 cycle mark, versus Gen2 and Gen1
- Remember, we are starting with our own silicon metal. All other competitors will start with silane gas, which is expensive, dangerous, and toxic
- When we start making pouch cells which can handle more expansion, we are going to get better results
- What we are going through right now with battery materials business line resembles very much what we experienced with fumed silica
- It's realistic to expect 200-250-300 cycle results for Gen3. Usually 7-10 days for each 50 cycles, but it may vary
- We have requests for batteries so we will be doing a batch of batteries to deliver to confirm commercial applications
- One of the main reasons why the battery hype went down is the because of the cost to produce the batteries. We are looking to make the 18650 battery as performant as 21700. Manufacturers can use the same equipment they already have without any changes, this is
massive cost reduction to be able to use already operating equipment for another 5-10 years to make a BETTER product
- Electronic cigarettes use the 18650 batteries, just one application that requires high performing 18650 format batteries
Fumed silica - We are in the "boring" phase, getting ready to produce the material
- We went through the same process as with QRR, there has been "boring" / quiet phase, and then it wasn't. Fumed silica reactor is simpler
- When we start making the material, all the discussions about delays and why it has been so quiet / slow is going to go away in an instant
- (!) We actually had people approach us and ask "Bernard, how much money you need to make 10 plants? This amount? Let's make a model ... Where are you going to build your first plant?". These are not even Evonik, there are people approaching to finance the plants, especially if there is an offtake agreement with Evonik
- HPQ Silicon is taking a conservative approach, similar to Pyrogenesis, making sure that pilot plant operates well, so Bernard wants to at least run the pilot plant and optimize until December. There have been many start ups / companies which failed because they were rushing and cutting corners
Bernard is extraordinarily happy with where HPQ Silicon is. We are just entering the phase where we are going to have great news releases.
Renaissance wrote: