 Welcome back to Investor and Tell Everyone. I'm Peter Clausy. Very curious about what we're going to be talking about today, which is a cobalt-free formulation for a battery, a rechargeable battery. With us is the ever-effervescent Don Blundell from Nano One. How are you, Dan? I'm great, Peter. Great to be here. Well, I haven't talked to you since PDAC. Yeah, it has been a while. And yeah. And PDAC is, well, the last one seems like it was years ago, of course, but because so much has happened this year. It certainly has. Nano One has been around a long time. If you go to the website, there's a really nice timeline showing the initial placement of $3 million back in 2016 and the growth of the company over time, with the cash in the planned runway through 2024. Whoever designed that did a good job. I'm more curious about last week's press release. Last week's press release, which I just had on my screen. It was actually just yesterday. It wasn't even last week. It was yesterday? Yeah. Holy God. Okay. I got to slow down a little. It's disappeared on me. While I find it, why don't you tell us what was in there? Listen, so the news is about a battery system that we have designed using what we call a high voltage spinel, which is a cathode chemistry that consists of lithium, nickel, and manganese and no cobalt and lithium, nickel, and manganese and manganese. Correct. Okay. And, and so there's no cobalt in it. So it kind of eliminates that whole supply chain risk. And like no cobalt, not like BYD that has a little bit of cobalt. You're talking none. None at all. And I should probably make sure that people understand that it's a totally different crystal formation in that material. So that, you know, all the other stuff where they got low cobalt, NCA, what people are putting into it, like what's in a Tesla car and going to 811, all that stuff is a crystal that has a whole bunch of layers of nickel, manganese, and cobalt, and then layers of lithium. Very energy dense material, but is the more cobalt you take out of it, the more unstable it gets. The high voltage spinel, which is the stuff we announced this week in a battery, is entirely a different structure. So it's a three dimensional structure, like let's say like I said, a monkey bar set. So it's got vertical structures all over the place and horizontal ones and lithium fits in the middle. You can pull lithium in and out without the structure collapsing or doing anything. And the nickel and manganese are actually quite stable. So you don't need cobalt in that kind of battery material. However, it runs in a very high voltage and has had been, that's its impediment really, is at those voltages, the electrolytes and anodes that go into batteries typically fail very, very early within a couple of cycles. And we've found a way to design a battery using relatively conventional materials, including our spinel. And we've overcome those impediments. So we don't get this really heavy gassing in the battery and we don't get any sort of contamination building up on the anode side. And that's allowed us to demonstrate a viable commercial battery architecture that can actually take advantage of this high voltage cobalt pre material. So what do you use for your electrolytes? It's a conventional electrolyte and that's part of our intellectual property, of course, the design of it. And at this point, it's not published information. So whenever I talk about batteries, I tell people who don't know, there are only five parts to a battery, cathode, anode, a circuit linking them, electrolytes in the middle, and something to hold it all together. And then when I'm done, it always looks like a happy face. Oh, yeah. Okay. Right? So you're talking about doing work on the cathode. That is correct. Yes. Are you doing work on the anode? So we're not, yeah, we're not doing work on the anode, although when we do, when we build test batteries, of course, we have to do put all the pieces together and we typically will, we aim for conventional materials because we don't want to add complexity on any other components. And we have found in that process a way to make these, make a battery work at 4.7 volts without the gassing and contamination issues that would be normally associated with that. And this material happens to operate in that range. And that's the key thing. What kind of battery are you talking about? Like I've got the Samsung A20. I'm working on a Mac here. I've got another laptop over there. Guy down the street has an electric vehicle. Which one of those uses your anode, your cathode? Well, none of your neighbors' devices uses our cathode, obviously, but the technology is intended for all of you, Bob. It doesn't really matter. A high voltage spinel is a cathode material that could go into consumer electronics. It could go into power tools. It could go into energy storage stuff and of course, electric vehicles. So it's a cathode that has benefits for all of those applications. It's strength. Every cathode material, every different chemistry has its strength and weaknesses. Some of them are good at power. Some of them are good at safety. Some of them last longer. Some of them are denser. Yeah, there's a classic five point matrix we all see. Yeah, yeah. And none of them are all of the above. The materials that are going into an electric vehicle today are typically these energy dense NMC materials. Everyone's trying to thrift out the cobalt, but you reach the point of diminishing returns from a stability point of view. And we've got technology on that side we're working on as well. The high voltage spinel is unique in that it operates at a high voltage. It doesn't have that same capacity as these NMC materials, but the voltage compensates for that and gives you back the power. So you end up running it at a higher voltage and a lower current, and that means it runs more efficiently than the C build up. And it's just overall a more efficient battery. And because it's dominantly manganese with a little bit of nickel sprinkled in, it's cheap. And it's a better supply chain. It's a better supply chain. And because the inherently the power is nearly as good as NMC because of the voltage range, you end up getting a very good dollar per kilowatt hour end product out of it. So are you looking to license the technology to other people, sit back and collect your dividend checks, or do you want to be a manufacturer of the batteries yourself? So we are a licensing strategy. So our technology, our strategy is to develop the processes for making these cathode materials, the cathode materials themselves, batteries that use the cathode materials wherever we can, and then license that technology or join venture with partners on manufacturing. Look, our DNA is in process innovation, really. That's where it's all at. And we have innovations at the process materials and battery end of things. But we're looking to partner with people who understand how to control supply chain, who have the DNA to do consistent manufacturing and have the sales channels in place. And we bring the innovation to the table. They bring the manufacturing horsepower and the ideas to license and partner with those groups. When I was flipping through the website, I saw a video discussing a recent partnership you struck. Tell me about that. So that would be the one we announced in August. I think it's the one you're referring to. It's with an Asian materials producer who currently supplies some of the Asian largest auto manufacturers. And they, they were working with them because they see an opportunity here really to carve out some intellectual property in a space that will give them a long tailed business supplying into the space. That's really, really key. What they don't want is they don't want other people to be able to come in and creep and take away some of that business stuff. Are they betting on a lot of horses or are you their only horse in that race for long-term technology? Well, I think they've got some of their own internal technology development. But, and, you know, we don't, we don't know everyone else they're talking to, but we're pretty sure we're, we're in a really good position with them. And the progress on that testing is going very well. The results are very good. It is a long process. You know, you develop these things at the laboratory. You build out sort of pilot level quantities. You have to test them with another materials producer and then with a battery producer and then with the OEM and all that validation, of course, takes months and even longer. So, but progress on it's going very well. And the idea here is that they've got the captive customer, they've got the manufacturing facilities. Once we've proven it out, then we start to shoehorn it in and start building up the manufacturing process and delivering on that demand. Almost like a co-packer. Yeah, yeah. And of course, it's been using our technology. So on the manufacturing side. So there's a there's a there's a joint really it's a joint venturing opportunity. I see this. They also have some of their own technology components that they're adding in here. So we're taking our technology, now there's adding it together to make some of the total better. So what's the next major thing we should be looking for? Looking at the timeline that's on your website. Look, we've got we've probably got 20 groups we're actively working with in various forms. Some of it's as simple as just early stage materials testing. Some of it's more joint development like we're doing with this Asian partner. And they're these programs extend from the OEMs. Volkswagen is one of our announced partners, but we were also working with a bunch of their peers. We're looking we're working with with some of the larger cathode producers, as well as some large chemical companies are looking to get into the space. And and then, you know, as far upstream as as talking and discussing and finding ways to collaborate with the big miners. That's a that's a big sort of big part of the story. So, you know, my job is to really is to convert those into, you know, real commercial and meaningful deals. And that's that's what we're doing. The good news is we've we've got dozens, literally, of these of these things underway right now. We're going to be adding more. OK. Dan, I hope I go less than nine months before I see you next time. Oh, yeah. Well, let's let's make a point of getting together in the next few months. Then that's how you're updates. That sounds wonderful. Dan Blondell from Nano one. I'm Peter Claus signing off from Investor Intel. Have a safe night.