FIC Shinsosae Completes Silicon Composite Anode Production Line at Pohang Plant

[Asia Economy Reporter So-yeon Park] FIC New Materials Co., Ltd. (FIC New Materials), a producer of silicon anode materials, a core material for secondary batteries, held a completion ceremony for its silicon composite anode production line on the 9th at the Gwangmyeong Industrial Complex in Pohang.

The ceremony was attended by key figures including Kim Doo-kwan, member of the Democratic Party of Korea (Yangsan-si Eul, Gyeongnam), independent lawmaker Kim Byung-wook (Nam-gu, Pohang-si, Ulleung-gun, Gyeongbuk), Lee Kang-deok, mayor of Pohang, and Kim Han-sik, head of the Daegu-Gyeongbuk Regional Small and Medium Business Administration, who delivered commemorative and congratulatory speeches.

In particular, representing a UK investment group, Jonathan Whitbread attended, and Lawrence Fagg represented UK FIC Limited, injecting great expectations for future battery-related cooperation between the two countries.

FIC New Materials was invited by the UK government and previously visited the UK’s national institution UKBIC along with its subsidiaries Eurocell and Indong Advanced Materials.

Going forward, batteries are emerging as a new growth engine for the global industry following semiconductors, already surpassing the semiconductor market size. Lithium-ion batteries are used in all fields except rocket fuel cells, including electric vehicles and home appliances.

The four core components of lithium-ion batteries are cathode materials, anode materials, electrolytes, and separators. Among these, the industry expects silicon anode materials to be the technology trend for the next decade.

The graphite anode materials currently in use have already reached their theoretical capacity limits, posing challenges to increasing battery capacity in the future.

As a next-generation technology to increase battery capacity, silicon anode materials, which add silicon to existing graphite, are gaining attention. However, mass production of nano-scale silicon is not easy.

FIC New Materials extracted silicon from waste solar cells and ground it down to the nano (㎚) scale, opening the path for mass production of nano silicon. Indong Advanced Materials deposited and coated silicon onto graphite ground to the micro (㎛) scale, developing and realizing low-cost, high-quality silicon anode materials. They completed a mass production factory at the battery special zone, Gwangmyeong Industrial Complex in Pohang, and plan to start mass production.

Yoo Sung-woon, chairman of FIC New Materials, said, "We achieved vertical integration from materials (Indong Advanced Materials) to components (Eurocell) for the first time in the world to develop and verify next-generation silicon anode materials," adding, "By cooperating with Glencore, the world’s number one materials company based in the UK, we will be able to establish a dominant position in the battery materials market."

Chairman Yoo also stated, "Verification was completed in actual products by significantly increasing the actual flight time by more than 1.5 times compared to before with the domestic defense drone company Yukon System," and expressed confidence, saying, "Through the FIC New Materials mass production plant, we will not only supply silicon anode materials in mass production but also realize spherical assembled graphite, the final technology of lithium-ion batteries, capturing both capacity improvement and fast charging."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.