No way..I'm betting hpq will be at the forefront in this race.
Posted on SH by develop from ceo.ca:
@cargo Lots of competition in the battery space which includes Ferroglobe that are utilizing nano-silicon or are also able to produce nano-silicon. It is IMO all about cost and how environmentally friendly the process is, the fact that they mention "chemicals" in the article makes me think they are doing everything they can to greenwash the whole process just like the whole silicon industry has been doing for years.
@cargo Also we do not know what type of material Ferroglobe requires to produce their nano silicon or how many steps are involved, but I did finds it interesting that they partnered up with Advano. If you got to their website you will find that one of the ways they are cutting costs is they are start off with low-cost scrap Silicon precursor as a competitive differentiator.
If this is the route that Ferroglobe is also going down (why would they partner up if they are not?) makes me wonder if the scrap silicon required as a precursor is indeed scrap from the polysilicon industry or electronic industry, if this is the case IMO this is no way a sustainable or reliable source.
https://www.advano.io/science
@helloween @cargo and they mentioned micron size silicon in their NR, not nano size. Even if they can reach 4N+, how much % of their production are they able to bring to that kind of purity ? And even if they said "without chemicals" I'm pretty sure their tech isn't one step. Finally, if they go the mechanical way to make micron size silicon, studies have proven that it isn't reliable to produce even size particles especially compared to plasma technology. And you're right, if they can't achieve graphite's price parity, we have nothing to fear at all since HPQ will be the cheapest producer
