Xerion Advanced Battery Corp. has launched a pilot-scale production line, featuring proprietary technology that reduces the complexity and cost of cobalt refinement.
Dayton-area manufacturer of battery components and critical minerals has established a pilot-scale production line at a local facility. This line introduces an innovative metal refinement method that could address the nation's supply chain issues for key minerals used in defense and commercial applications.
Kettering-based Xerion Advanced Battery Corp. launched the line at its local manufacturing facility, featuring proprietary technology that uses an innovative process to reduce the complexity and cost of cobalt refinement.
The facility, located in Kettering, now produces highly refined cobalt metal at a five-ton capacity, with plans to expand to 30 tons.
Xerion uses its proprietary technology, DirectPlate Molten Salt Electrolysis, for cobalt refinement.
The process entails a single-step, continuous method that transforms crude cobalt hydroxide directly into high-purity cobalt metal with yields exceeding 98%, meaning very little cobalt is lost during refinement.
Xerion's technology is designed to be more efficient and less expensive than traditional cobalt refinement methods. The low-temperature refinement process uses less electricity and recycles water, eliminating organic solvents. This results in lower emissions, making it more environmentally friendly and simplifying the permitting process for commercial infrastructure development.
The company’s patented DirectPlate and StructurePore technologies together deliver lower-cost batteries with higher energy density, power, charge speed, life and safety, while also lowering carbon emissions.
“We're not putting anything down the drain or anything in the air,” John Busbee, CEO and cofounder of Xerion, said. “We don't have any major pollutants from water wastewater, and we don't have any major pollutants from an air emission point of view.”
With the pilot production line operational, Xerion is optimizing processes for commercial viability at scale.
The company plans to develop a 150,000-square-foot cobalt metal production facility with a 2,000-ton commercial production capacity at an undecided location. There are also plans to establish another facility.
Busbee said the company is aggressively continuing to hire engineering and research staff, and that new operations will create about 40 to 60 manufacturing jobs, in addition to continued growth at the headquarters and on the research and development level.
The 2,000-ton facility is projected to supply approximately 20% of the nation's 10,000-ton annual cobalt metal requirement.
Work done in Dayton could potentially reduce the U.S.' reliance on foreign suppliers for cobalt refinement.
The U.S. has no domestic cobalt refinement capacity, making it reliant on other countries. China, for example, controls 72% of the global market. Cobalt is used in aerospace and defense technologies, consumer electronics, electric vehicles, pigments, superalloys and other industrial uses.
“It's incredibly important that we can compete with China on price without being at that large scale,” Busbee said. “Our processing cost, even now, is less than China's. Aside from the fact that people want to buy it because of the government rules on domestic materials, we also can just give them a better price.”
Xerion Advanced Battery Corp., a manufacturer of battery components and critical minerals founded in 2010, uses its patented technology to improve lithium-ion battery performance and reduce carbon emissions. The company employs 80 people locally.
