NEO Battery Materials Appoints University of Toronto Professors Dr. Mohini Sain and Dr. Ning Yan to Scientific Advisory Board

Critical Minerals & Rare Earths

October 29, 2021 (Source) — NEO Battery Materials Ltd. (TSXV: NBM) (OTCQB: NBMFF) (“NEO” or the “Company“) is pleased to announce that the Company has appointed Dr. Mohini Sain and Dr. Ning Yan of the University of Toronto to the Scientific Advisory Board.

About Dr. Mohini Sain

Dr. Mohini Sain is an expert in the field of bionanotechnology, low carbon functional materials and next-generation low carbon transportation. Dr. Sain’s reputation for research and development excellence in the automotive industry has awarded him the Endowed Ford Motor Canada PERDC Chair in Sustainable Materials. He is currently a Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and Director of the Center for Biocomposites and Biomaterials Processing and former Dean of the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Sain is the author of more than 750 peer-reviewed papers with more than 450 peer-reviewed journal articles. With an extensive patent portfolio, he is world-renowned for his expertise in transforming research ideas into commercialization, establishing more than 50 technology transfers to industries, and patenting new technologies in collaboration with multiple top-tier industry partners such as Ford Motors, Hutchinson Canada, and TOTAL North America.

He is currently a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (U.K.) and a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. Most recently, Dr. Sain has been elected a 2021 fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), one of the highest Scientific and Technological honour that a Canadian scholar can achieve. Starting with his transformative research on and scale-up of the wood-plastic composite (WPC), his pioneering work in materials engineering for low carbon materials has led to awards including the North American Entrepreneurship Award, the Plastic Innovation Award, and the Kalev Pugi Award for innovation and contribution to the industry.

Dr. Mohini Sain commented, “I am pleased to have joined NEO’s Scientific Advisory Board and to push the Company into the next stage of commercialization through research and testing of the silicon anode materials. NEO’s drive for sustainable battery materials, coating, and electrode engineering for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) is currently supported by leading-edge research and innovation by top battery scientists in South Korea and Canada for a fast-track into automotive applications.”

About Dr. Ning Yan

Dr. Ning Yan specializes in the field of Biobased Chemicals and Products from Renewable Biomass. Dr. Yan is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Bioproducts and the Director of the Low Carbon Renewable Materials Center. She holds a University of Toronto Distinguished Professorship in Forest Biomaterials Engineering at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry with a cross appointment to John. H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.

Dr. Yan has disseminated more than 300 publications, including more than 185 peer-reviewed papers in leading scientific journals. She is an international expert on forest biomaterial science, bio-based products and polymer adhesives and has won numerous prestigious awards for her teach and research excellence, including the NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplements Award.

She is currently a fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada. Dr. Yan’s research is directed towards renewable carbon and biochemicals with potential applications for a wide range of industries including energy storage and automotive. This includes the conversion of biomass to chemical precursors and the development of smart and functional materials for application in energy storage devices such as nanocomposites with superior strength, flexibility and toughness, electrically conductive carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene, and conductive polymers.

Dr. Ning Yan commented, “I am greatly pleased and excited to join NEO to implement our research and sustainable technology on energy storage devices for automotive applications. Time is of the essence for the industry, and we will be helping the Company with high-performance functional materials for both coating and electrode fabrication. Through this partnership, we are also seeking to establish a footprint for the battery material supply chain in Canada.”

Mr. Spencer Huh, President and CEO of NEO, expressed, “We are excited to have Dr. Mohini Sain and Dr. Ning Yan of the University of Toronto to be partnered and working with NEO Battery Materials. With sustainability throughout NEO’s production and supply chain being a core value, the Company will cooperate with Dr. Sain and Dr. Yan to optimize renewable materials that can be implemented as low-cost nanocoating materials, binders, and conductive additives to NEO’s silicon anode materials. We are ultimately targeting improved chemistries and cell performance for commercialization.”

About NEO Battery Materials Ltd.

NEO Battery Materials Ltd. is a Vancouver-based company focused on battery metals and materials. NEO has a focus on producing silicon anodes materials through its proprietary single-step nanocoating process, which provides improvements in capacity and efficiency over lithium-ion batteries using graphite in their anode materials. The Company intends to become a silicon anode active materials supplier to the electric vehicle industry. For more information, please visit the Company’s website at: https://www.neobatterymaterials.com/.

On behalf of the Board of Directors
Spencer Huh
President and CEO
604-697-2408
[email protected]

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