Today, POSi Energy – Silicon Power, announced the demonstration of a new lithium-silicon anode that allows a revolutionary performance step-up in lithium-ion batteries.
POSi’s lithium-ion battery architecture uses a record high-cathode loading, showing the potential to double the energy density without forming any lithium dendrites, while maintaining highly stable capacity after more than 300 cycles, and halving the required anode weight and volume. POSi’s revolutionary design unlocks the full potential of the cathode.
“POSi’s technology is fundamentally different from all others in that our anode is a lithium-silicon alloy. The silicon itself does not participate in intercalation/de-intercalation or any reaction during charge/discharge cycles,” said Dr. Devendra Sadana, POSi’s founder and CEO.
“Our solid silicon-based anode acts as a host for lithium, but the expansion and contraction problems associated with traditional silicon anodes during charge/discharge cycles, respectively, are entirely avoided – this is a breakthrough,” he underscored. POSi’s lithium-silicon anode has the potential of safely delivering gravimetric and volumetric energy densities of greater than 600 Wh/kg and 1200 Wh/L, respectively, at the cell level without forming any lithium dendrites.
POSi’s lithium-ion cell architecture is compatible with current battery manufacturing infrastructure, being easily and effectively integrable into industry-standard cells and can meet the cell level cost target of below $100 Wh/kg. POSi’s goal is to enable OEMs to deliver to their customers vastly more efficient energy storage products to accelerate the shift to greener technologies in order to meet the challenges of climate change.
POSi has already demonstrated working pouch-cell prototypes with a capacity fade of less than 0.04% per cycle over 300 cycles with a current density as high as 6 mAh/cm2 by using above industry standard cathode loading.
The technology was initially developed at IBM by POSi’s founder and CEO, Dr. Devendra Sadana. POSi has acquired all the relevant patents from IBM and company continues to expand its IP portfolio with additional patents.