Innovative Manufacturing Process Enabling California-based Cathode Actives with Breakthrough Leading Economics (IMPECCABLE)

Project Result

In 2024 the R&D team continued to improve the quality of the cathode material by performing experiments focused on finding definition of operations windows to control the effect of temperatures, gas flows, raw materials impurities, particle size distribution, etc. on cathode electrochemical performance. The Engineering group just completed testing of milling and classification equipment at three vendors’ sites, with promising results. The three different sets/brands of equipment showed very good capabilities of delivering cathode material at different specifications by adjusting operating parameters, proving that the tools can deliver different particle size distribution curves according to customer requirements.

In 2025, Sylvatex advanced the CEC RAMP project from facility buildout into sustained cathode material development, testing, customer sampling, and early scale-up. The team completed the move into, and commissioning of, a new pilot facility, bringing critical process equipment, gas systems, milling, and safety infrastructure fully online and securing all required City of Alameda and Cal/OSHA approvals. With operations established, work focused on iterative iron oxide based LFP cathode development, producing and evaluating multiple batches, launching coin and pouch cell testing, and improving compaction density, rate capability, and batch-to-batch consistency, with recent materials meeting performance targets and cycle life testing ongoing. Scale-up activities progressed from 100 g to 300 g batches, with a 500 g run underway, alongside targeted refinements to process controls, drying methods, calcination conditions, and carbon coating uniformity to reduce variability. In parallel, Sylvatex shipped second-generation LFP samples to more than ten battery manufacturers, incorporated customer feedback into material optimization, conducted coating and full-cell validation trials, and hosted partner site visits, while maintaining close coordination with vendors and stakeholders.

Looking ahead, Sylvatex plans to continue scaling LFP batch sizes while advancing commercialization with Coreshell as a partner for electrode and cell validation. Near-term work includes supplying 100 g of LFP cathode active material for Coreshell to validate and formulate into electrodes, followed by a shipment of 5 kg to fabricate small-format, multi-layer pouch cells of approximately 5 Ah to demonstrate electrochemical performance. This will scale further with a 50 kg shipment to enable fabrication of production-relevant, large-format multi-layer pouch cells of approximately 60 Ah, consistent with the standard formats used for automotive EV OEM qualification. In parallel, Sylvatex will submit a Material and Process Consistency Report to build a comprehensive database of feedstock, intermediate, and product properties and to analyze variability against electrochemical performance; a Material Failure Analysis Report to evaluate failure modes through cell-level and post-mortem analysis; a Feedstock Impurity Tolerance Report to quantify process robustness to lower-purity inputs; and a Cathode Active Material Performance Improvement Report focused on carbon source selection and coating process optimization to improve surface coverage and electronic conductivity.