Material scalability refers to the ability to produce a particular material (especially a new or advanced material) in the volumes, quality, and at the cost needed for commercial application. In battery technology, a lab might develop a promising new electrode material that works great in coin cells, but if the material is made via a complex process using rare precursors or if it’s difficult to make consistently at kilogram or ton scales, it may never become commercially viable. Scalability encompasses factors like availability of raw materials, synthesis yield, process steps (are they industry-compatible and safe?), time, energy, and cost per unit mass of material, and the performance consistency when scaled up. Often, materials behave differently when production is scaled (for instance, nanoparticle distribution might be uniform in a small batch but clump in larger reactors).
NOVONIX, with its focus on practical battery solutions, considers material scalability in its projects. NOVONIX Anode Materials continues to be focused on scaling up mass production of high-quality artificial graphite using advanced furnace technology. The advanced furnace technology allows scaling at high yield and competitive pricing. NOVONIX’s synthesis of synthetic graphite for anodes is a good example: transitioning a process from the lab to a production facility required engineering and optimization. Novonix Cathode’s patented, all-dry, zero-waste cathode synthesis technology aims to simplify cathode manufacturing and make it more environmentally friendly. NOVONIX’s pilot scale cathode manufacturing line is producing high quality NMC materials, showing how a process developed in the laboratory can be scaled to an efficient manufacturing process.
