• Posted 30-Mar-2020

A pinch of graphene to increase batteries' lifetime and capacity

A multidisciplinary team of Graphene Flagship researchers is developing high-performance graphene enabled silicon-based lithium-ion batteries for hearing aids, wearables and small electronic devices. In doing so, they identified how to use a pinch of graphene to increase the lifetime and the capacity of these batteries by 30%.

Silicon holds the promise to become the next generation anode material for lithium-ion batteries potentially increasing their energy storage capacity by a factor 10. However, the current obstacle is the poor structural stability of the silicon anode, which drastically decreases the lifetime of the battery.

Thanks to the synergies in Graphene Flagship, researchers at the cell manufacturer VARTA Micro Innovation GmbH, in cooperation with the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) and its new spin-off company BeDimensional, have made a significant step to overcome this obstacle by adding just a small amount of graphene to the silicon.

Christoph Stangl from VARTA Micro Innovation describes graphene as “the sprinkle on the top of the cake” in this process. These graphene-enabled batteries would live much longer (over 300 cycles) and in addition, their capacities would be 30% higher than any currently available alternative. These graphene-enabled coin cells could be crucial for various rapidly growing market segments involving electronic gadgets, such as wireless headphones, wearable devices and car keys.

More info

• Graphene enabled silicon-based lithium ion battery boosts capacity by 30%, Graphene Flagship's press release

Source: Digital Single Market News (https://bit.ly/2yjRKWx)