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Shares of NEO Battery Materials (TSXV: NBM) soared to the highest in more than two years on Wednesday after the silicon anode materials developer announced it has been awarded consortium partnership in a major battery recycling project in South Korea.
The project was organized by the South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and includes several major battery and chemicals companies. Hansol Chemical will lead as the head project organization. Also participating in the project are INNOX eco-M, South Korea’s largest cathode materials producer and NEO’s recycled silicon collaborator, and battery technology company LiBEST.
Over the next five years, the South Korean government is expected to invest C$20 million towards the project, with a focus on developing high-performance silicon anode materials based on recycled silicon scrap from semiconductor and photovoltaic wafer manufacturing.
The consortium partners recognize that solving the limitations of waste materials is critical to achieving price and technological competitiveness for silicon anodes and strengthening sustainability in the lithium-ion battery industry, NEO said in its press release.
The Toronto-based company will act as a downstream value chain participant. Using recycled silicon inputs optimized with low-cost technologies, NEO will jointly develop silicon anode materials with consortium partners to manufacture high-content silicon anode batteries.
This project directly advances the company’s strategic plan to secure low-cost, high-performance silicon feedstock, it said.
“With approximately 900 tons of waste silicon produced annually in South Korea, all consortium partners are motivated to develop effective technologies to recycle and reuse all waste generated moving forward,” Spencer Huh, CEO of NEO, said.
NEO Battery Materials traded 10% higher late in the afternoon at C$0.77 a share, having hit a 52-week high of C$0.84 earlier in the day following the latest partnership announcement. The company’s market capitalization is an estimated C$90.8 million.
The announcement follows the recent signing of a memorandum of understanding with Linde Korea Co., an affiliate of the leading industrial gases and engineering company, to collaborate on the scale-up of NEO’s silicon anode manufacturing for lithium-ion batteries.
NEO’s stock has been trending up since early October, when it announced a partnership with a mystery Fortune Global 500 chemical company for the development of silicon-based anode materials.
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