Canadian company Nouveau Monde Graphite (NMG) said on October 7 that it had developed an anode-material coating process with researchers at McGill University. The company estimates that replacing conventional petroleum-derived pitch with a bio-based coating could reduce Scope 1 emissions by 130 kilograms of CO₂ equivalent per tonne of coated spherical purified graphite (CSPG). This is NMG's estimate, not an independently verified result. The company specified that the figure concerns direct process emissions and is not a full life-cycle carbon-footprint assessment of the product.

The work was carried out under a collaboration that began in 2020 to advance battery-material technologies with a lower environmental footprint. NMG's research team and McGill materials-science and metallurgical-engineering researchers aimed to use readily available raw materials and a process compatible with existing manufacturing equipment. NMG said it has filed a patent application and holds commercial exclusivity for future use of the technology. The project initially received support through Québec's Mining Research and Innovation Support Program and later through a grant from Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. These are details about the research and its funding, not evidence that commercial production has begun.

NMG said electrochemical testing followed the protocol of a leading cell manufacturer. The company reported equivalent results for capacity, first-cycle efficiency and fast charging. Testing, however, was conducted at laboratory scale. Planned next steps include comparative long-term cycling tests, evaluation of additional material types and, ultimately, a validation campaign using industrial-scale equipment. A patent application has been filed; it should not be described as an awarded patent or as completed industrial validation. Scale-up would still require checks on coating consistency, process yield, cost and cell performance under production conditions.

The estimate of 130 kg CO₂e per tonne of CSPG concerns direct Scope 1 emissions. NMG said work to reduce Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions is continuing, but those categories are not included in the stated estimate. The figure therefore does not by itself establish the total carbon intensity of the graphite, the lifetime emissions of a battery or the environmental superiority of a commercial product. Those conclusions would require defined system boundaries, disclosed methods and data, independent life-cycle assessment and measurements at production scale. Any comparison would also need to use the same process boundary and output unit.

If the process is validated and adapted for production, it could offer a way to reduce pitch use and direct emissions during the coating stage. NMG places the research within its planned Québec supply chain linking a mine with processed graphite. It also said construction is underway at its Matawinie mine and that it is targeting an investment decision in the coming months for a Bécancour battery-material plant designed for 13,000 tonnes per year. Those separate project milestones do not mean the coating process has reached commercial use. The next evidence points are long-duration cell-test results and repeatable performance on pilot or industrial equipment.