Changing How the World Makes Battery Materials

About our partnership

In May 2019, we announced approved funding from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC).

About SDTC

At SDTC, we support companies attempting to do extraordinary things. From initial funding to educational support and peer learning to market integration, we are invested in helping our small and medium-sized businesses grow into successful companies that employ Canadians from coast to coast to coast. We are relentlessly focused on supporting our companies to grow and scale in an increasingly competitive marketplace. The innovations we fund help solve some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges: climate change, regeneration through the circular economy, and the well-being of humans in the communities they live in and the natural environment they interact with. Since its inception, SDTC has invested nearly $1.4 billion in more than 450 companies, creating nearly 17,000 jobs. Our companies have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 22.4 megatons annually. For more information, please visit sdtc.ca

About our partnership

In December 2018, we entered into a Joint Development Agreement with Saint-Gobain to enhance high temperature processing in order to increase the performance of both company’s materials.

About Saint-Gobain

Saint-Gobain designs, manufactures and distributes materials and solutions which are key ingredients in the wellbeing of each of us and the future of all. They can be found everywhere in our living places and our daily life: in buildings, transportation, infrastructure and in many industrial applications. They provide comfort, performance and safety while addressing the challenges of sustainable construction, resource efficiency and climate change. Saint-Gobain had €40.8 billion in sales in 2017, operates in 67 countries and has more than 179,000 employees.

The Volkswagen Group with its headquarters in Wolfsburg is one of the world’s leading automobile manufacturers and the largest carmaker in Europe. The Group comprises twelve brands from seven European countries: Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Audi, SEAT, ŠKODA, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Ducati, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Scania and MAN. Each brand has its own character and operates as an independent entity on the market. The product spectrum ranges from motorcycles to small cars and luxury vehicles. In the commercial vehicle sector, the products include ranges from pick-ups, buses and heavy trucks. The Group operates 120 production plants in 20 European countries and a further 11 countries in the Americas, Asia and Africa. Every weekday, around 642,292 employees worldwide produce nearly 44,170 vehicles, and work in vehicle-related services or other fields of business. The Volkswagen Group sells its vehicles in 153 countries. With its “TOGETHER – Strategy 2025” future program, the Volkswagen Group is paving the way for the biggest change process in its history: the realignment of one of the best carmakers to become a globally leading provider of sustainable mobility. www.volkswagenag.com.

About our partnership
In June 2022, Rio Tinto invested $10M USD in Nano One, making them a 4.9% owner. They have an Iron Ore mine just north of Nano One’s commercialization plant* in Quebec. Their experience in the millions of tons of material production will help to accelerate Nano One’s production process.

*The acquisition of Nano One’s Québec Facility is expected to be complete by the end of 2022.

About Rio Tinto
Rio Tinto is a mining and metals company operating in 35 countries around the world that produces the materials essential to human progress. It aims to help pioneer a more sustainable future, from partnering in the development of technology that can make the aluminium smelting process entirely free of direct GHG emissions, to providing the world with the materials it needs – such as copper and titanium – to build a new low-carbon economy and products like electric vehicles and smartphones.

Rio Tinto has a long history in Canada where it operates significant aluminium, diamond, iron and titanium businesses. Rio Tinto is also building a leading battery materials business, with three lithium projects in development across the United States, Argentina and Serbia.

About our partnership

In June 2021, Nano One entered into a co-development agreement with Johnson Mathey. Together, we’re developing the next-generation products and processes for Johnson Matthey’s advanced cathode materials using Nano One’s patented technology.

About our Johnson Mathey

Johnson Matthey (JM) is a global leader in science that enables a cleaner and healthier world. With over 200 years of sustained commitment to innovation and technological breakthroughs, we improve the performance, function and safety of our customers’ products.  Through continued investment in research and development, we are tackling the world’s big challenges, including through our pioneering work in battery material technologies. Here we are commercializing eLNO®, our family of nickel-rich advanced cathode materials, which we expect to be ready to power the next generation of hybrid and battery electric vehicles in 2024. Our first manufacturing plant, currently under construction in Poland will initially supply 10,000 MT per year of eLNO®, equivalent to ~100,000 electric vehicles. The construction of our second plant is scheduled for later this year, and will initially supply 30,000MT of eLNO® per year.

Across JM, our science has a global impact in areas such as enabling the energy transition, low emission transport, pharmaceuticals, chemical processing and making the most efficient use of the planet’s natural resources. Today, more than 15,000 JM professionals collaborate with our network of customers and partners to make a real difference to the world around us. 

About our partnership
In May 2021, Nano One entered into a co-development agreement with CBMM. Under this agreement, we have co-developed single crystal niobium coated battery cathode materials.

About CBMM
World leader in the production and commercialization of Niobium products, CBMM has customers in over 40 countries. With headquarters in Brazil and offices and subsidiaries in China, Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States, the company supplies products and technology to the infrastructure, mobility, aerospace and energy sectors. CBMM was founded in 1955 in Araxá, Minas Gerais, and relies on a strong technology program to increase Niobium applications, growing and diversifying this market.

About our partnership
In October 2021, Nano One entered into a co-development agreement with Euro Manganese. Together, we’re developing economically viable and environmentally sustainable applications of high-purity manganese, expected to be produced by Euro Manganese.

About Euro Manganese

Euro Manganese Inc. is a battery materials company whose principal focus is advancing the development of the Chvaletice Manganese Project, in which it holds 100% interest. The proposed Project entails re-processing a significant manganese deposit hosted in mine tailings from a decommissioned mine, strategically located in the Czech Republic. The Company’s goal is to become a leading, competitive and environmentally superior primary producer of ultra-high-purity Manganese Products in the heart of Europe, serving the lithium-ion battery industry, as well as other high-technology applications. 

The Strategic Innovation Fund’s (SIF) objective is to spur innovation for a better Canada by providing funding for large projects. It is a program of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). Nano One has received funding through the Automotive Supplier’s Innovation Program (ASIP) which has been consolidated into the SIF.

The National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP) provides advice, connections, and funding to help Canadian small and medium-sized businesses increase their innovation capacity and take ideas to market.