Business opportunity
Leading scientists at the Dept. of Chemistry, Univ. of Oslo have developed additives for silicon electrodes in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) that can highly increases the storage capacity, energy density, and charge retention capacity of the battery.
The energy storage capabilities of batteries is one of the key solutions to reduce CO2 emissions worlwide. To reach the sustainability goals, improved battery lifetime, reliability, and safety are crucial factors. Silicon is an emerging anode material for LIBs, and with its anode capacity potential exceeding ten times the commonly used graphite anodes, it is the most promising candidate for obtaining ultra-high battery performance. By balancing the other components of the battery, it is realistic to increase the overall capacity of the battery by 100–200%. However, the exploitation of silicon in LIBs is hampered by severe material-related challenges. The present technology from the Univ. of Oslo provides a novel solution to this key challenge of the LIB industry. Additionally, it can contribute to sustainability through value addition to waste recycling of crystalline silicon from the solar cell industry.
Inven2 seeks partners for co-development and/or licensing of the technology. We are interested to validate the technology applicability together with user partners.
Technology description
The electrode is prepared with silicon, water, carboxymethyl cellulose sodium salt binder, and the novel additives made up of easily available and cheap chemicals (including boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen elements). The additives are added to the electrode slurry through common, conventional electrode processing steps without any special provision.
Energy density and charge storage capacity retention of the battery with the additives are highly improved because it stabilizes the electrochemical interface formed in initial cycles of charge-discharge. The additives also allow an extended working potential window of the battery cell charge-discharge (0.01-1.0 V) than current state of art of materials. The additives form a stable solid electrolyte interface on the silicon anode and solve the stability issues of silicon, minimize the initial capacity loss, and improve cycling efficiency.
The solution allows a reduction in the amount of carbon in the anode, which enhances the safety of the battery.
Advantages
- Solves the stability issue of silicon in Si-LIBs
- Enhances Coulombic Efficiencies and working potential window
- Increases the energy density, charge retention capacity and storage capacity
- No additional steps in electrode processing and low price of chemicals used as additive
- Decreases the amount of carbon in the anode addressing safety concerns
