Sila, a company founded by former Tesla engineers, is looking to disrupt the electric vehicle industry with its silicon-based anode powder that can boost the performance, range, and charging speed of EV batteries, first shared by Wired.
Sila is going to supply its silicon-based anode powder to Panasonic, which happens to be Tesla’s leading U.S. supplier. This will also reduce suppliers’ dependence on Chinese graphite.
Sila’s silicon-based anode powder is called Titan Silicon, and it aims to replace the graphite that is commonly used as the anode material in lithium-ion batteries. Graphite has a limited capacity to store energy, which limits the range and power of EVs. Silicon, on the other hand, can store up to 10 times more energy than graphite, enabling longer trips and faster recharges.
According to Wired, the change to silicon in traditional lithium-ion batteries could enable 500-mile nonstop trips and 10-minute recharges. However, silicon has a major drawback: it expands and contracts during charging and discharging, which can cause the battery to degrade. Sila has solved this problem by creating a nanocomposite material that consists of tiny silicon particles embedded in a carbon scaffolding.
The company also says that its powder does not require any changes in the existing battery manufacturing processes, making it easy to adopt by the industry. “It took us 12 years and 80,000 iterations to get to this point…It’s sophisticated science,” said Sila cofounder and CEO, Gene Berdichevsky.
Check out the complete Wired report on the new battery technology here.
Image credit: Sila
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