I believe this sits behind a paywall from All Nova Scotia....

I believe this sits behind a paywall from All Nova Scotia.

Haven't been able to confirm or exact date of publication, found on another site and copied:

NEWS!!! - Novonix To Make Low-Cost BatteryBattery tester and developer Novonix is expanding in Bedford to accommodate a new business line that it’s spinning out from a lab at Dalhousie University. The company is spending roughly $1.5 million to add about 8,800 square feet at 177 Bluewater Road for a cathode pilot processing facility, after coming up with a new, low-cost process to synthesize the battery material with the help of Mark Obrovac’S lab at Dal. The new process helps solve one of the greatest challenges facing the lithium-ion battery sector – cost – as the current method to process cathodes is expensive and creates waste. It’s big deal for companies that rely on lithium-ion batteries, such as Tesla Inc, which will soon be able to source its materials for less. That’s likely to have an effect on the mainstream adoption of electric vehicles, says Novonix co-founder and CEO Chris Burns. “Why don’t we see more ev on the road? It’s not because the range isn’t far enough. All of the “inconveniences” that people have always been concerned about with electric vehicles almost don’t exist anymore. The challenge is cost”, he told allNovaScotia. “So everything we focus on is around how we can produce competitive, best-in-class performance materials with a lower cost structure. “He says the new business model introduced at Novonix after it was acquired in 2017 by Brisbane-based battery materials producer Graphitecorp, now known as Novonix Ltd. Allows the company to focus on research it can spin off into new business lines. The 30-person outfit was itself spun out of Herzberg Medal winner Jeff Dahn’s lab at Dal in 2013, with co-founders Burns and David Stevens beginning to ship battery testing hardware out the door a year later. It has been working since at least 2019 with Obrovac, a Dal grad who researched batteries under Dahn before joining multinational conglomerate 3M, later returning to his alma mater to teach. He’s now the metal ion batteries research chair, funded in part by Novonix and the federal government. Novonix has recently filed patent applications on the low-cost process it developed with Obrovac’s lab to synthesize cathodes, the terminal through which an electric current flows before it enters a device. The process is called dry particle microgranulation. Technology and electrolyte systems that use the process are to be developed in Novonix’s new “pilot processing facility”, considered a pilot as it may one day become a stand-alone business line. “As we continue to progress, that project may be outgrowing the building to a new dedicated site”, said Burns “We would love to keep opportunities here, whenever possible. There’s no reason that we can’t be a part of this amazing ecosystem for battery materials and the entire battery sector growth. “The challenge for us has always been the commercialization side and scaling businesses here cost-effectively”. He says the expansion will increase Novonix’s footprint to about 23,300 square feet, including the pilot processing facility,as well as new warehouse and office space. Dartmouth-based Bruno Builders is handling the build. Work has begun and is expected to complete by June, just in time for Dahn’s arrival as chief scientific adviser