silicon eyed as way to boost electric car battery potential - lithium battery manufacturers
(Reuters)-
The race to make better electric vehicle batteries is turning to silicon, and several companies are working to design types of materials that can increase driving range and reduce production costs.
About 500,000 electric vehicles (EVs)
According to US data, global sales in 2016 are expected to grow 7 times by 2022S.
Energy Information Administration
This growth is expected to benefit from the government's task of reducing emissions by banning gasoline and diesel --powered cars.
But so far, many drivers have been delayed by the high cost of electric cars and concerns about the driving range, and so far the driving range is limited to a few hundred miles (kilometers)
Before the charge is required
But silicon can help boost energy storage if electric vehicle batteries are heavily Silicon-powered.
A company like this in California
Based on Sila nano technology, it aims to apply its technology to more than millions of electric vehicles (EVs)
Chief Executive Gene Berdichevsky said in an interview that the battery will be available in the next decade.
The energy density of silicon is higher than that of graphite, which is traditionally used as a battery anode.
The battery consists of an anode and a cathode, which are negative and positive parts, respectively, and the current flows between them.
Sila, who started at a lab at Georgia Tech, said they had developed technologies that could completely replace graphite, which helped boost capacity and range.
Researchers at Vrije University in Brussels estimate that using silicon can reduce the cost of electric vehicles by 30% per kilowatt hour.
Sila (owned by bmw ag (BMWG. DE)
AMP Technology Co. , Ltd (300750. SZ)-
The world's largest consumer battery producer
As a major customer, silicon products are planned to be launched in the consumer goods sector next year.
"The Year of the first car we are looking at is 2023, so we need to reach many gigawatts of capacity in order to have a meaningful impact in the automotive sector, said Berdichevsky, a former Tesla company (TSLA. O)
An engineer who helps design the model of a sports car for an electric car manufacturer.
Elcora Advanced Materials, a Canadian graphite material producer, although Sila's products completely replace graphite (ERA. V)
Is one of many companies dedicated to increasing the capacity of graphite anode powder by adding silicon.
"We had a lot of discussions with lithium.
"Ion battery manufacturers and all of them are working on Silicon spilled on graphite electrodes," said Shane Beattie, chief technology officer at Elcora . ".
Umicore, Belgian materials technology and recycling group (UMI. BR)
Leading player of nickel manganese cobalt (NMC)
Battery Chemistry also began to study the use of more silicon in batteries.
"The battery industry has gained a lot of potential value from these developments," said Marc Grynberg, chief executive of Umicore . ".
"That's why we want to have a place in the market.