We often see them along motorways or in industrial parks. The common one does not have access to it, but this summer, the team of Business press The factories that are part of the landscape was opened.
Nano One
- Headquarters: Vancouver
- Installations: an innovation center in British Columbia and a production plant in Candiac
- Founder and Chairman and CEO: Dan Blondal
- Number of employees: more than 100 – Fifty in Quebec
These are battery materials, but basically, it’s a recipe story. The interior of the Nano One factory, on the South Shore, looks like a large kitchen, but with industrial equipment in which chemical ingredients are mixed.
Cathodes, positive pole of a lithium-ion battery. How many times have you heard it since the Quebec government offensive in this niche? In Candiac, in a large blue building that can be seen at the junction of Highway 15 and Route 132, we have been making it for a long time (the factory had several owners since the early 2000s) and the process is probably very different from what you have in mind.
The director of the Nano One factory, Jasmine Dufour, is used to the astonishment that this arouses.
“Everyone, when we say that we make cathode materials, expects a mounting chain,” he says, letting out laughing. But these are chemical processes, that’s what we do. »»
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Photo Martin Chamberland, La Presse
The different ingredients necessary to manufacture cathode materials are stored in a very specific location in the factory.
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Photo Martin Chamberland, La Presse
The ingredients are mixed in industrial reactors.
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Photo provided by Nano One
An example of what is mixed in industrial reactors.
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Photo Martin Chamberland, La Presse
Everything is automated in the factory. In a control room, a conductor monitors everything that happens to ensure that nothing is wrong.
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Photo Martin Chamberland, La Presse
At different stages in the process, Nano One can carry out laboratory tests to ensure the quality of the product materials.
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Photo Martin Chamberland, La Presse
At the end of a long journey, it is in an industrial oven that the last chemical reaction is carried out.
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Easy to realize it as soon as you set foot inside the complex – where, without surprise, wearing helmet, protective glasses, a long white coat and steel tip shoes is compulsory. It is also better to wear earplugs, graceful of the ambient noise of the machinery.
Reservoirs to accommodate chemicals, industrial reactors, dryer and oven … Difficult to make the link with the batteries at first. But it is through the different stages of the recipe that the magic operates.
Without this long process, it is impossible to manufacture this kind of powder which is cathode equipment for LFP batteries (lithium-fer-phosphate).
Apart from the industrial equipment on several floors, we do not see much inside the Nano One factory. And that is wanted. There are three large enemies for a manufacturer of cathode materials: open air, humidity and external contaminants.
Photo Martin Chamberland, La Presse
The Nano One factory, in Candiac, on the South Shore
Indeed, we do not see much apart from the equipment and it is because we do not want the process to be exposed to impurities. It is a mixture of precision.
Jasmin Dufour, director of the Nano One factory
“It is super important to ensure that there are no contaminants, such as metallic particles, which enter the process and which can cause short circuits. »»
Automation is omnipresent. Normal, the company wants to limit contacts. It is especially in the control room that the action takes place, where a manager – a conductor – has his eyes on seven screens which indicate in real time everything that happens in the factory.
“There are about four floor operators per quarter work,” emphasizes Mr. Dufour. On our scale, it is enough. We try to limit contacts. »»
The recipe
The processes are often specific to each manufacturer. Nano One, for example, has developed a recipe that allows you to consume less energy and water in addition to limiting discharges. The particularities are numerous and the process is complex. Nano One approaches the marketing stage.
For the exercise, let’s focus on the main steps: mixing, reaction, drying by atomization and cooking.
In Nano One, the ingredients (magnetitite, phosphoric acid, lithium carbonate, etc.) are mixed in an industrial reactor, a step in which we find water.
“What will get out of here?” A kind of mixture that contains all precursors, explains the factory director. It looks like a fairly liquid mud. It is one of the two big steps. You have to succeed to get a quality product. »»
Then comes the time to spread the water. This is where drying by atomization is made. Essentially, it is here that a product in the liquid state becomes solid (in powder).
Photo Martin Chamberland, La Presse
Cathode materials manufactured at Nano One are shipped to customers in bags.
The route is coming to an end. There remains the cooking stage, a compulsory stop of a few hours in an industrial oven. It is here that the chemical reaction occurs to allow the material to become “active”, therefore capable of transmitting energy inside a battery.
“There are two places where magic occurs, in the reactor and here, with the oven,” said Dufour.
Before being delivered, the “active powder” is packed in bags with an inner aluminum lining, a question of not letting the air and the humidity penetrate.
“A bit like a bag of croustilles,” illustrates the factory director of Nano One.
Of the kitchen, on an industrial scale.
