Commercialization of new silicon lithium batteries

Silicon Valley Sila Nanotechnology Corporation recently announced that it has raised $70 million to expand its new silicon-lithium battery technology from prototype to commercial scale. The company claims that its technology can increase the capacity of lithium-ion batteries by 40%. By optimizing existing materials, lithium-ion batteries have been able to achieve an annual performance improvement of about 5%. The most direct way to increase battery capacity is to increase the amount of lithium ions stored in the electrode. So far, most of the improvements in battery life have been achieved through certain combinations of nickel, manganese, and cobalt in the cathode. When these metals are combined, their crystal structure can store lithium ions more efficiently, and also allows ions to move through the cathode to the anode more easily than other materials. But the anode is basically made of graphite. Many companies are currently trying to use silicon to make higher-capacity anodes. Theoretically, the number of lithium ions that can be stored is about 25 times that of graphite anodes of similar size, but they all fail because the silicon anode ruptures under the pressure of many lithium ions. . Sheila tried to solve this problem by filling silicon atoms in a relatively empty nanoparticle matrix. When the silicon anode absorbs lithium ions, the ions fill the voids instead of squeezing the silicon atoms apart, ensuring that the structure does not break. Hilla CEO Gene Bedichowski said that after 7 years of development, its silicon anode lithium battery technology has been verified in small electronic devices such as wireless earphones, smart watches and smart phones. The latest capital injection will help Sheila build a facility in Silicon Valley capable of producing 20 MWh of battery capacity per year, enough to power 2 million smart phones or 10 million smart watches.