Tech Focus: A Production-Scale Microwave Plasma Process

Battery & Electrification INSIDER

The UniMelt plasma production technology pushes chemistry beyond traditional boundaries to create virtually any material. (Image: 6K Energy)

6K Energy has developed the UniMelt® plasma process, a production platform to produce battery material, which reduces costs of materials by 50-70 percent, diminishes energy and water consumption as well as CO₂emissions substantially. All of this, while eliminating hazardous by-products during manufacturing and collapsing production time to seconds versus days with co-precipitation.

The UniMelt plasma process is in production today for producing additive manufacturing powders such as Ti64, Ni718, 316 stainless, and Tungsten as examples, and has progressed significantly toward full scale production capabilities for battery materials. 6K Energy has successfully demonstrated the ability to produce battery materials such as NMC cathode, LTO and silicon anodes, and LLZO solid state electrolyte, and is currently working with the industry’s largest EV car OEMs, battery cell makers and leading cathode suppliers to perfect material chemistry and move to full production.

The UniMelt plasma production technology pushes chemistry beyond traditional boundaries to create virtually any material. While other processes like co-precipitation are constrained by the limitations of specific synthetic routes, the UniMelt process can produce essentially any chemistry in a two-second process. The UniMelt technology provides precise control over size and morphology, with an ability to tune size over a 10,000X range.

For battery materials, this combination of chemistry and morphology control means materials can be independently designed to optimize for power, energy density and life, all with low production costs, allowing a single production platform to address all the energy storage markets. The speed and flexibility of the UniMelt process allows 6K to iterate material designs significantly more quickly than existing methods. This enables rapid design turns resulting in a faster time to market with new materials for energy storage, accelerating performance improvements which will ultimately lead to faster adoption electric vehicles. Battery Show Booth 1801.

For more information, visit www.6kinc.com/6k-energy-sustainable-battery-material/ .