LOUISVILLE, Colorado July 7, 2017: Argonne National Laboratory has entered into an exclusive license
agreement with Forge Nano to commercialize Argonne’s patented system and
method for continuous atomic layer deposition. This license enhances
Forge Nano’s ability to offer and protect key intellectual property
rights for its customers across an even broader array of strategic
markets.
Forge Nano’s innovative manufacturing systems are
industrializing the Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) process by offering a
unique value proposition toward upgrading material performance for
wide-ranging applications. ALD is a process that deposits a uniform and
ultrathin encapsulating coating around any material. The process can
used to upgrade many materials, such as powders utilized in energy
storage applications (lithium-ion batteries, fuel cells,
ultracapacitors, etc.), as well as many non-energy applications as well.
ALD allows for coating thicknesses down to Angstroms (1/100,000th the
thickness of a human hair). Such control allows for the application of
coatings that are thick enough to eliminate unwanted reactions that
cause degradation within energy storage systems or moisture-sensitive
materials, yet thin enough to not adversely affect desirable material
properties. ALD coatings are by far the most compelling coating solution
for eliminating capacity fade and enabling higher overall performance
and safety in batteries. ALD is a process that has existed for decades
with hundreds of publications demonstrating its capability as a process
to improve material properties for a wide variety of applications.
However, due to a lack of manufacturing innovation, it has remained a
lab-scale process utilized primarily by academics. Forge Nano has
developed, patented and successfully demonstrated a high-throughput
process for applying ALD, which reduces the overall cost of energy
storage devices while improving their performance and safety.