Asia Tech Wire (Sep 11) -- Japanese chemical products maker Nippon Shokubai will invest as much as 37.5 billion yen ($265 million) to build an EV battery material plant.

Nippon Shokubai announced Wednesday that it will build a new plant in Japan's Fukuoka Prefecture to produce electrolytes used in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, with the goal of commencing commercial operations of lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide (LiFSI) by 2028.

The company is due to invest up to 37.5 billion yen, of which the Japanese government will provide up to 12.5 billion yen in subsidies.

The new plant has an estimated annual capacity of 3,000 tons, which equates to a lithium-ion battery capacity of 21.4 GWh if it uses 100% of the above lithium salt products as electrolytes.