New Cobalt-Free Silicon EV Battery Is The Best Thing Ever
New Cobalt-Free Silicon EV Battery Is The Best Thing Ever
New Cobalt-Free Silicon EV Battery Is The Best Thing Ever
“This breakthrough development translates into a remarkable improvement in cell-core energy density, reaching 2,000Wh/L in batteries and approximately 1,700Wh/L in full-size EV batteries – more than double the performance of current state-of-the-art technologies,”
“Sienza’s 3D pure silicon anode has demonstrated an average gravimetric capacity of 2,941 mAh/g,” Professor Gharib said. “This means that for every gram of silicon, our batteries can store 2,941 milliampere-hours of electricity, significantly higher than the industry standard for graphite, with a gravimetric capacity of 372 mAh/g.”
Aside from completely avoiding the cobalt issue, Sienza notes that its manufacturing process does not rely on the solvent-based coating systems deployed for producing conventional lithium-ion batteries. Sienza cites one commonly used solvent in particular, N-methyl-pyrrolidone (NMP).
That sounds really impressive. But describing it as "the best thing ever" really has my skepticism at full mast.
ETA: I can't find any mention of a single drawback or tradeoff to this new technology. That makes this a marketing piece rather than journalism. Nothing is ever better in every conceivable way than the current state of the art.
Probabilistically, sure, but it's not impossible that there has been some piece of knowledge or understanding that's been missing, and that massive breakthroughs are possible once the process is figured out.
I think a fair modern example is LED light bulbs. They are better in every conceivable way than incandescent or fluorescent lightbulbs: they last longer, use less energy, shine brighter, use less toxic materials, and are easy to mass produce. But there were several decades where much of the industry believed that LEDs would never be very useful as a light source because we could only produce red and green, and it was generally believed that a blue LED would be impossible to produce.
Then one guy decided it would be his life mission to invent the blue LED, and the sonuvabitch did it. Now LEDs are the only sensible thing to use to produce light.
It's always possible for this kind of breakthrough to happen, especially in material science where the complexity of how molecules interplay is nearly incomprehensible.
A breaktrough would be needed to electrify ship and flight. Would be great if it is that.
LEDs are worse at color accuracy (CRI) which is hardly relevant unless you need it, but it's just to show that even they aren't strictly better than what they replace
Possibly difficult to mass produce. That’s usually what kills all the new great battery tech.
I hope this encourages some manufacturers to endorse it and bring it to market. That could make them save and profit a lot compared to other battery tech manufacturers.
Even if this gets relegated to niche applications, all improvements are good improvements.
At the very least, it demonstrates that certain targets are possible, and that's sometimes necessary to secure funding to find those cheaper/scalable options.
I'm doing a PhD in batteries. Not this issue specifically, but I hear a lot about different battery fields so I think I can speak on it.
The drawback is that the anode expands and contracts a lot during a cycle. This puts a lot of strain on the binder holding the film together, and on the contact between the film and the aluminum foil. This makes the battery degrade and fail after fewer cycles.
Below is an article in nature from 2020 where a group is trying to solve this issue by coating the Si platelet particles with carbon (adding complexity and mass). You can read about this issue on greater detail in the abstract and introduction. There are many articles tackling the same issue (many cited in this article), I just picked this one because it had info in the intro/abstract. Stable high-capacity and high-rate silicon-based lithium battery anodes upon two-dimensional covalent encapsulation
In addition, the expansion/contraction cycles causes the electrolyte to dry up. During the first few cycles of any battery, the electrolyte reacts with the electrodes to form passivating layers on the electrodes. When the particle contracts/expands excessively, the particle breaks apart and the passivating layer is ripped up. The passivating layer is then reformed, now on a larger area, which consumes more electrolyte. Eventually the cell fails from the lack of electrolyte.
Below is an article in nature from 2024 where a group tries to solve this issue by designing an electrolyte that creates a passivating layer that keeps its shape when the particle contracts, creating a shell. You can read more about the issue In the abstract, intro, and figures. High voltage electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries with micro-sized silicon anodes
These are solvable issues, but a lot of the solutions are either too complicated to scale up, or add too much mass/volume to make it worth it, or slow down the discharge rate. And any change anywhere, needs to be taken into account on the rest of the parts of the battery.
I don't know what Sienza Energy did. It's an MIT spin-off, so they probably know their stuff. All issues don't need to be solved for a battery to be functional, it just needs to be good enough. Any new battery factory "just" needs to find and scale-up the state-of-the-art components in the right combination. There will be a ton of drawbacks, but it will be better than the last battery factory.
I appreciate the information and the links. I didn't mean to imply this isn't exciting or useful technology, just that when an article is pure hype I come away thinking someone is trying to sell me something, not give me actual information.
Any expert opinion on this idea? https://spectrum.ieee.org/flow-battery-2666672335