6K Energy officially broke ground on the construction of the world's first sustainable multi-chemistry cathode manufacturing plant scheduled to open in Q3, 2024.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, Economic and Community Development Commissioner Stuart McWhorter, 6K CEO Dr. Aaron Bent, and 6K Energy President Sam Trinch were joined by local business and community leaders, construction and supply partners as well as lithium-ion battery industry executives for the event.
Governor Bill Lee said, "6K Energy's decision to invest more than $200 million in Jackson is a testament to Tennessee's unmatched business climate, highly skilled workforce and position as a leader in the automotive industry. I thank 6K Energy for creating 230 new jobs to provide greater opportunity to Tennesseans across Madison county."
6K Energy President Sam Trinch added, "Our PlusCAM facility is the world's most sustainable process that fulfills the need for domestically, sourced low-cost battery material for our nation's critical infrastructure, grid storage, and electric vehicles. Having representatives here at the groundbreaking such as our perspective customers, materials suppliers, design and construction partners as well as Governor Lee and his team of Tennessee state and county officials underscores the importance of delivering low-cost battery materials."
The company also announced strategic relationships with global design and construction partners for the construction of their PlusCAM facility: Koch Project Solutions will be responsible for program management of the construction project; Ghafari, a global architect and process design firm with battery material and automotive architectural experience will lead the design efforts; and Evans General Contractors will head up the construction efforts.
Earlier this year 6K Energy announced the PlusCAM factory, a full-scale battery material manufacturing plant, scheduled to open in late 2024 with 13K metric tons per annum (tpa) production capacity. The PlusCAM factory will be the world's first UniMelt® plasma cathode plant providing low-cost, ultra-sustainable production of battery material for localized supply chains in the US. In addition, the company announced a $50M Department of Energy grant opportunity that will partially fund the $200+ million PlusCAM factory.