REC, Sila reach multi-year silane agreement after REC announces first shipment
REC Silicon has announced that it will not only have its first shipment go out in October, but has also established an agreement to provide silane gas to Sila Nanotechnologies through 2031.
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Sila Nanotechnologies’ building at 3741 Road N NE, which the company bought in 2022 for $37.5 million. The facility is near REC Silicon’s facility which will provide silane gas to Sila to produce silicon anode products.
MOSES LAKE – REC Silicon announced that an agreement had been finalized with Sila Nanotechnologies arranging for REC to provide Sila with silane gas for their production of Sila’s Titan Silicon, its trademarked anode material.
"We appreciate the opportunity to support Sila and their production of next-generation battery materials," said Kurt Levens, CEO at REC Silicon. "This agreement demonstrates the increasing demand for high-purity silicon materials in the clean energy sector, and we are confident that our collaboration will play a key role in accelerating the transition to electric vehicles and highlight the benefits of working with an experienced, reliable and consistent silane producer."
The agreement is set to go through 2031 and will allow Sila to provide its product to auto customers from the fourth quarter of 2025 and beyond. Sila has contracts with Mercedes-Benz and Panasonic and three additional customers that they are not prepared to announce publicly. Those customers will be served through Sila’s facility in Moses Lake.
"Our agreement with REC Silicon is a critical step in securing the raw materials needed to deliver Titan SiliconTM to our auto customers for the long haul," said Gene Berdichevsky, co-founder and CEO at Sila. "It also marks the importance of ensuring domestic production and supply of a critical next-generation material to support US manufacturing leadership in clean energy.”
The agreement will ensure Sila has a domestic supply of the gas which is a scarce but critical component to anode material production, according to the announcement.
This announcement comes after REC issued a press release announcing the first scheduled shipment of its ultra-high purity polysilicon from its silane-based high-purity granular production facility in Moses Lake. The shipment is set to go out in mid-October after customer quality verifications are satisfied.
“Getting to this point and mitigating the previous impurity issue was the result of hard work by many dedicated personnel of the Company. We will soon be beginning a new phase for the facility where efforts are transitioning to continuous quality improvement to exceed the market standard, ramp-up, and optimization,” Levens said via the press release.
The shipment was sent out after a series of modifications to its processes allowed it to address an impurity issue in its initial batches of product. The modifications have corrected the issue so that the product meets REC’s customer’s specifications.
REC’s construction at its Moses Lake facility is complete, including its Silane IV facility and equipment will be started in the new construction portion of the plant as production ramps up. The press release indicates that the facility is running well and producing volumes sufficient for commercial shipments.
Sila Nanotechnologies’ building at 3741 Road N NE, which the company bought in 2022 for $37.5 million. The facility is near REC Silicon’s facility which will provide silane gas to Sila to produce silicon anode products.