Utah company aims to make waves by creating lithium-ion batteries | News, Sports, Jobs

With the electric vehicle market booming, a Utah County company is looking to help the US gain a foothold in the lithium-ion battery business.

According to the International Energy Agency, sales of electric cars reached 6.6 million in 2021, more than triple their market share from two years earlier. That growth is not expected to slow down anytime soon.

Thanks in part to consumer incentives in President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a BloombergNEF report predicts that more than half of US car sales will be electric by 2030.

Most electric vehicles use lithium-ion batteries, which commonly contain a combination of lithium cobalt oxide, often mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and graphite, mined in Turkey and China.

At Ionic Mineral Technologies, Andre Zeitoun, Founder and CEO, oversees his team as they mine and process halloysite, an aluminosilicate clay mineral that can be powdered and placed into the production of existing lithium-ion batteries to replace the graphite.

“We’re taking an abundant resource of halloysite, which is a US-based material, and using a very innovative approach to turn it into nanosilicon,” Zeitoun said. “Which is a huge unmet market need for the electric vehicle.”

Zeitoun has been studying Halloysite and its potential applications for more than a decade. The company owns and operates one of the world’s largest deposits of high-purity halloysite located in Eureka, Utah, and processes the ore at its pilot plant in the Vineyard.

“What’s unique about halloysite is that it forms a naturally accumulating nanotube structure,” Zeitoun said. “Due to the uniqueness, structure and chemistry of this mineral, it becomes the ideal raw material to convert to silicon metal, which the electric vehicle industry is seeking to enable faster-charging vehicles that last longer, that have a longer range.”

Halloysite-produced silicon metal is unique in that it can overcome some of the major limitations that graphite presents in lithium-ion batteries. Substituting silicon for graphite can improve an EV’s power density and increase the speed of its charging capabilities.

“Eighty percent of the car can be charged in five minutes,” Zeitoun said. “Once that’s achieved, we’ll see charging stations everywhere, gas stations, because you can get in and out as fast as it takes to fill up a tank of gas.”

Ultimately, Ionic Mineral Technologies’ mission is to become the world’s leading producer of nanosilicon anode powders and critical mineral byproducts for the next generation of advanced lithium-ion batteries.

To help achieve this goal, the company is currently building a 36,000-square-foot, full-scale production facility in Provo, due for completion in July 2023.

“I think we really have an opportunity to build a great business here in Utah,” Zeitoun said.

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