Researchers from UC San Diego, backed by LG Energy, have made an exciting discovery that brings together two popular battery techs. They have developed a solid-state battery with an all-silicon anode capable of delivering longer life, high energy density, and fast charging. This could potentially make EVs cheaper and more practical.
Silicon is a highly desirable anode material as it offers more than 10 times the energy density of current graphite anodes. The issue here is that silicon anodes tend to expand and degrade faster as a battery charges and discharges, particularly with the liquid electrolytes currently used in lithium-ion cells. That issue has kept them from becoming commercial.
Making batteries durable and more efficient
On the other hand, the challenge with solid-state batteries is that they use metallic lithium anodes that must be kept at elevated temperatures during charging. This makes them less practical at lower temperatures, requiring heaters that eat up valuable energy.
The solution to both issues is a special kind of silicon anode in a solid-state battery, as per the US San Diego team. They eliminated the carbon and binders typically used in silicon anodes and used the liquid electrolyte with a sulfide-based solid electrolyte.
Technology requires more work
With those changes, they showcased that the all-silicon anodes stayed more stable in the solid electrolyte, managing to retain 80% capacity after 500 charge and discharge cycles have done at room temperature. It also allowed for faster-charging rates than previous silicon anode batteries, the tea noted. The team has already licensed the technology to a firm named Unigrid battery, and LG Energy Storage aims to expand the research.
The work is particularly promising for grid storage, as per the lead author Darren H.S. Tan. But it’s still at a nascent stage and more work is required, the team said. Also, a lot of batteries that performed well in labs do not reflect the same performance in the real world. The research paper was published in the Science journal. Such inventions could be really helpful in the fight against climate change.
