Better Lithium-ion Batteries via “Sponge-like Silicon Material”?

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory reported that a “sponge-like silicon material” could help lithium-ion batteries store more energy and run for a longer amount of time on a single charge.

As quoted in the market news:

Researchers developed the porous material to replace the graphite traditionally used in one of the battery’s electrodes, as silicon has more than 10 times the energy storage capacity of graphite. A paper describing the material’s performance as a lithium-ion battery electrode was published today in Nature Communications.

‘Silicon has long been sought as a way to improve the performance of lithium-ion batteries, but silicon swells so much when it is charged that it can break apart, making a silicon electrode inoperable,’ said Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Fellow Ji-Guang ‘Jason’ Zhang. ‘The porous, sponge-like material we’ve developed gives silicon the room it needs to expand without breaking.’

Click here to read the full Pacific Northwest National Laboratory report.