US-based advanced battery technology solutions provider Solidion has announced that its technical team has filed several US patent applications on an innovative process for cost-effective production of graphene-hosted silicon as a high-capacity anode material.
Industry-leading EV OEMs have concluded that silicon anode is required to drive EV battery technology to a lower cost and provide a higher energy density, significantly extending the EV driving range. Specifically, silicon (Si) is a leading-edge anode material capable of extending the EV range by 20-40%.
One of globally leading silicon anode materials is produced from chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of Si in pores of highly porous carbon particles. This technology has several major drawbacks, due to the use of a silane gas-based feedstock, which is known to be scarce, highly explosive, costly and challenging to produce, transport, and store. Additionally, current porous carbon particles are incapable of accepting more than 50% of silane-derived Si in their pores, a feature which significantly compromises the achievable cell energy density.
Solidion’s patent-pending Si anode technology overcomes these technical and economical obstacles by using an innovative combination of two strategies:
- Well-designed porous graphene balls that can readily accommodate up to 90% Si in the graphene/Si composite.
- A low-cost silane-free precursor to Si will be much safer to produce, store and transport than silane and can be more cost-effectively converted into Si.
