Coreshell Technologies has been selected to receive a $50 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Manufacturing Deployment Office to expand domestic lithium-ion battery manufacturing based on metallurgical silicon anodes. The funding will support the company’s efforts to develop a U.S.-based battery manufacturing operation using silicon as an alternative to conventional graphite.
The award is being provided under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and will support the expansion of Coreshell’s manufacturing facilities. The company also plans to establish what it describes as the first U.S. gigafactory dedicated to producing lithium-ion batteries with anodes made entirely from metallurgical silicon.
Coreshell’s technology is focused on replacing graphite with metallurgical silicon, or MGS, which can be sourced domestically. The company aims to reduce reliance on graphite processing concentrated in China and build a more localized supply chain for battery anode materials and cell manufacturing in the United States.
For the project, Coreshell will collaborate with AM Batteries, which will provide its dry-electrode manufacturing technology for cathode production. The companies plan to establish approximately 2 GWh of electrode manufacturing capacity along with 1.5 GWh of battery cell assembly capacity.
The manufacturing project is expected to create more than 100 jobs across production, technical and administrative functions. Hiring is planned to take place in stages as facility construction progresses and manufacturing equipment is installed and brought into operation.
AM Batteries will participate as a subrecipient and supply its Powder-to-Electrode dry-coating technology, which avoids the solvent-based coating process used in conventional electrode manufacturing. By combining this dry-electrode approach with Coreshell’s metallurgical-silicon anode technology, the project aims to support the domestic production of cost-competitive, high-performance battery cells for automotive and U.S. defense applications while strengthening the country’s battery supply chain.
