Li-ion Battery Uses Silicon To Produce 10 Times More Energy

A new key player that could increase the storage capacities of the humble Lithium-Ion battery

Ranging from electric cars to portable electronic devices, Lithium-Ion batteries find their way to a variety of applications in the practical world. And in today’s world especially, Li-ion batteries (as they are called), practically power our world!

Thus, any technology improvements in such a valuable product would command high esteem.

New research at the University of Waterloo, Canada claims to have enhanced the performance and life of commercial lithium-ion batteries, significantly.

Thing is, Graphite which has been indefinitely used as a material for negative electrodes in Li-ion batteries, lacks storage capacity, thus actually acting as a hinderance to improvements in storage capacity.

Scientists associated with the project claim that by using a new type of silicon anode instead of the conventional graphite anode, results in smaller, lighter and longer-lasting batteries.

Consequently, the silicon battery technology developed by the researchers assures a 40–60% increase in energy density!

Zhongwei Chen, a Chemical Engineering professor at Waterloo, has developed the technology along with a team of graduate students, and their findings have been published in the latest issue of Nature Communications.
‘Graphite has long been used to build the negative electrodes in lithium-ion batteries. But as batteries improve, graphite is slowing becoming a performance bottleneck because of the limited amount of energy that it can store’, said Professor Chen in a statement.

Silicon, as an alternative, promises to offer a storage capacity of 4,200 mAh per gram, in contrast to 370 mAh/gram, offered by the currently employed graphite electrodes.
This ten fold increase in the energy storage capacity can significantly bolster its applications in daily life.

An immediate application? Electric cars. While a lot of people (environmentalists and the common man) see and appreciate the benefits of moving away from fossil fuels — to the environment and to natural wealth. However the proliferation of these saviour-machines is stymied by two debilitating issues with currently-available materials — batteries discharge very quickly thereby limiting the range of the vehicles, and conversely, they recharge very slowly.

The new technology, claimed to be environmentally safe, will substantially reduce the overall weight of vehicles owing to the smaller and lighter batteries, and also increase the distance possible by an electric car between re-charges, by being able to store more energy for your meanderings..

Such research and development is one of its kind, thus deserving public acclamation.

However, there is a major issue that the researchers have been facing lately, while working with silicon.
During each charge cycle, the interaction between silicon and lithium, causes silicon to expand and contract, considerably to as much as 300 percent. This results in immense swelling, which brings about cracks, thus lowering the performance of the battery over time.
This could potentially also lead to short circuits, and possibly, eventual cell failure.

Thus, the scientists have adopted certain measures to overcome this critical situation. That includes using sponge-like silicon anodes developed at the nanoscale, bringing carbon and graphene nanotubes into the mix, using silicon nanowires measuring only a few microns long, etc.

Researchers also asserted that durable nanoarchitecture could be created by employing a chemical reaction between sulphur-doped graphene, silicon nanoparticles and cyclized polyacrylonitrile, thus altering the structure of the silicon anode.
The newly designed anode structure would result in less contact between lithium and the anode, thereby preventing much of the expansion and contraction, and creating higher stability.

In contrast to graphite’s average of 500, the new design would lead to a capacity of more than 1,000 mAh/gram over 2,275 charge cycles.

Commercialization on the new technology is being worked upon by the team, and the next batches of batteries (expected next year) might include the revised technology and materials.

Cars are just one example, there are infinite more uses and applications.

All we can say is, that the world needs to come to pass, sooner than later.

Originally published at Chip-Monks.