A kilogram of lithium carbonate from southern Arkansas has travelled far enough down the battery supply chain to become a small but telling proof point for North American manufacturing. Vancouver-based Nano One Materials says it converted Standard Lithium’s battery-quality material into lithium iron phosphate cathode active material, then assembled and tested coin cells at its Burnaby innovation centre. The first-discharge result, about 155 milliamp-hours per gram, gives both companies evidence that an emerging U.S. lithium source can work with a Canadian-developed LFP production process.
The achievement is still laboratory-scale, not a commercial breakthrough. Yet it arrives as governments and manufacturers are trying to close a stubborn midstream gap between North American mineral deposits and the cathode materials needed by battery factories.
Arkansas Lithium Made Its Way Into Working LFP Test Cells
The test began with roughly one kilogram of battery-quality lithium carbonate supplied by Standard Lithium from its South West Arkansas pilot work. Nano One put that material through its patented One-Pot process to make LFP cathode active material, then used the resulting powder in coin cells assembled at its Burnaby, British Columbia, Innovation Centre. Nano One said the material met its targeted chemical and physical parameters and achieved the intended particle morphology.
That sequence matters because battery-grade lithium is not valuable to a cell maker simply because it meets a chemical specification on paper. It has to behave predictably in downstream manufacturing. Standard Lithium described the exercise as additional validation of the process flowsheet behind its Arkansas project, while Nano One framed it as another feedstock qualification that could broaden sourcing choices for future customers and licensees. In practical terms, the test connected an upstream American lithium project with a Canadian cathode technology platform.
The Lithium Comes From Arkansas’ Smackover Formation
The lithium did not come from a conventional hard-rock mine. Standard Lithium’s South West Arkansas project is being developed around lithium-bearing brines in the Smackover Formation, an established subsurface resource region spanning parts of the southern United States. The project is operated through Smackover Lithium, a joint venture in which Standard Lithium owns 55% and Equinor holds 45%, with plans to use direct lithium extraction and purification technology.
A definitive feasibility study released in 2025 outlined an initial design capacity of 22,500 tonnes per year of battery-quality lithium carbonate and targeted first production in 2028. The study projected a minimum operating life of more than 20 years and reported proven reserves of 447,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent. Those figures make the one-kilogram Nano One test look tiny by comparison, but that is precisely the point: qualification work happens long before a commercial plant attempts to send thousands of tonnes into a battery-material supply chain.
Nano One Is Targeting the Battery Industry’s Midstream Gap
Nano One’s role sits in the less visible middle of the battery chain. Miners and lithium developers produce chemical feedstocks, while cell factories assemble electrodes, separators and electrolytes into finished batteries. Between those stages sits cathode active material, or CAM, a highly engineered powder that helps determine a cell’s chemistry and influences cost, performance, durability and safety. Nano One is trying to make that midstream step easier to localize.
Its One-Pot process combines steps normally separated in conventional cathode production. The company says the approach can use regionally available inputs while eliminating sodium-sulfate wastewater associated with common sulfate-based processing. A life-cycle assessment commissioned from Minviro estimated that the process could cut greenhouse-gas emissions for LFP production by roughly 25% to 50%, depending on location and energy mix, while Nano One has also reported potential reductions in process-water use. Those are company-backed estimates, but they help explain why the technology is central to its licensing strategy.
The 155 mAh/g Result Is Promising, but It Has Limits
The headline number from the Burnaby test was approximately 155 mAh/g on first discharge. For context, lithium iron phosphate has a theoretical specific capacity of about 170 mAh/g, while practical results depend on material design, electrode formulation, test conditions and cycling protocol. Reaching 155 mAh/g therefore indicates that the Arkansas-derived lithium carbonate produced functional LFP material in Nano One’s laboratory process; it does not establish how a commercial battery pack would perform.
That distinction matters. Coin cells are a standard research and qualification tool because they allow developers to study electrochemical behaviour with small quantities of material, but they are far removed from mass-produced automotive or stationary-storage cells. Nano One itself cautions that results obtained at its Innovation Centre may not be replicated at pilot or commercial scale. The value of this test is therefore less about one performance figure and more about demonstrating compatibility before larger, more expensive qualification stages begin.
LFP Has Become Too Important for North America to Ignore
LFP has moved from being treated as a lower-cost alternative to becoming one of the battery industry’s dominant chemistries. The International Energy Agency reported that LFP accounted for nearly half of the global electric-car battery market in 2024, up from less than 10% in 2020. Its appeal comes from comparatively low material cost, strong cycle life and favourable thermal characteristics, making it attractive for standard-range vehicles and stationary energy storage.
The supply chain, however, is unusually concentrated. IEA analysis found that more than 98% of LFP cathode material and LFP battery cells were produced in China in 2024. By 2025, China also accounted for roughly 85% of global cathode active material production across electric-car batteries more broadly. That concentration makes a North American feedstock qualification strategically relevant: the challenge is not merely finding lithium, but building the processing know-how and manufacturing capacity needed to keep more value-added battery production within allied markets.
Candiac Is Nano One’s Bridge Toward Commercial Scale
Nano One is attempting to bridge laboratory validation and commercial adoption through its Candiac, Quebec, facility. The site already operates an LFP line of roughly 200 tonnes per year and is being expanded to approximately 800 tonnes annually. As of mid-July 2026, detailed engineering was 85% complete, and the company said commissioning of the expanded demonstration line remained targeted for the first half of 2027.
The facility is small beside a gigafactory-scale supply chain, but Nano One does not present Candiac simply as a volume play. It is intended to produce customer samples, support smaller commercial offtakes and demonstrate full-scale equipment that can be replicated through licensing or joint ventures. The company says about 95% of expansion equipment by procurement value, including all intellectual-property-sensitive equipment, is being sourced from Canada, the United States and the European Union. That procurement approach mirrors the broader localization story Nano One is selling to prospective partners.
Washington Is Treating LFP as a Security Issue Too
The push also has a national-security dimension. In 2024, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded Nano One US$12.9 million through the Defense Production Act Investments program to increase production of LFP cathode active materials at its Candiac and Burnaby facilities. The Pentagon explicitly linked the award to strengthening large-capacity battery supply chains and noted that Canada has qualified as a domestic source for Defense Production Act purposes since 1992.
Government support has become meaningful to Nano One’s balance sheet and commercialization plan. In its August 2026 second-quarter update, the company said it had secured more than C$63 million in non-dilutive capital since the beginning of 2024, including grants, loans and asset-related proceeds. It reported C$19.3 million in cash at June 30 and about C$20 million in undrawn government funding available in August. For a pre-scale battery-material company, that backing helps fund the expensive gap between technical validation, customer qualification and commercial deployment.
Standard Lithium Adds Another Option to Nano One’s Feedstock Map
Standard Lithium is not Nano One’s only feedstock relationship. In 2025, Nano One said it had pre-qualified lithium raw materials from Rio Tinto for LFP production, including lithium carbonate from the Fenix operation in Argentina at tonne scale and material from Olaroz at kilogram scale. The Standard Lithium work adds a prospective U.S. source to that pool and extends a relationship developed through the Arkansas Lithium Technology Accelerator.
The strategy targets a problem that can slow industrial projects: a customer may like a manufacturing process but still need proof that locally available raw materials meet its specifications. Nano One says its qualification pathway moves from laboratory-scale A-samples through pilot-scale C-samples before commercial D-samples. Pre-qualifying multiple inputs could give future licensees more choices and potentially shorten development schedules. The benefit is optionality rather than exclusivity—an important distinction in a battery market where raw-material economics, policy rules and project timelines can change quickly.
Nano One Wants to License a Factory Blueprint, Not Just Sell Powder
Nano One’s commercial model increasingly depends on selling more than cathode powder. In June 2026, the company and engineering group Worley Chemetics completed a One-Pot LFP cathode package containing process design, equipment specifications, plant layout, vendor information and cost estimates for a production line. The goal is to turn years of process development at Burnaby and Candiac into a repeatable package that can be licensed in different jurisdictions.
That approach helps explain why a one-kilogram lithium test can matter commercially. A prospective plant owner needs confidence that the process, equipment and local feedstocks can work together before committing large amounts of capital. Nano One says its “Design One Build Many” strategy uses Candiac as a demonstration base while larger plants are financed and built by partners or licensees. The model still depends on winning binding contracts, but successful feedstock qualification gives the company another piece of evidence for customers evaluating a localized LFP project.
Turning a One-Kilogram Test Into an Industrial Supply Chain Is the Hard Part
The next milestones will be harder than producing a good coin-cell result. Standard Lithium still has to take a final investment decision on South West Arkansas; as of August 10, it said it remained on track to approve the project and begin construction in 2026, with first production targeted for 2028. Nano One must complete the Candiac expansion, move customers through larger sample stages and convert technical interest into supply, licensing or joint-venture agreements.
Even so, the test illustrates what a North American battery chain looks like when the pieces begin to connect. Lithium-bearing brine in Arkansas was processed into battery-quality carbonate, shipped into a Canadian cathode-development system and turned into working LFP test cells in British Columbia. The amount was small, but the chain was tangible. With LFP demand growing and production still heavily concentrated in China, the strategic question is whether demonstrations like this can become repeatable industrial relationships—and scale fast enough to matter.
