Huawei has made a significant revelation with a new patent pertaining to lithium battery materials, with a particular emphasis on silicon-based anode materials.
Huawei has made a significant revelation with a new patent pertaining to lithium battery materials, with a particular emphasis on silicon-based anode materials.
On November 15, the National Intellectual Property Administration of China publicized that Huawei has released a patent for silicon-based anode materials named "Silicon-Based Anode Materials and Their Preparation Methods, Batteries, and Terminals." This patent is chiefly aimed at resolving the problem of low cycling performance in batteries that arises due to the excessive expansion effects related to silicon-based materials, consequently enhancing the cycling stability of the anodes.
The patent reveals that batteries fabricated using the invention for preparing silicon-based anode materials display substantially improved cycling performance in comparison to traditional silicon oxide/carbon composite anode material batteries. The expansion rate of electrode sheets upon full charge is considerably diminished, and after 600 cycles, there is a significant reduction in cell expansion rates.
Moreover, the incorporation of a conductive layer on high-silicon-to-oxygen ratio particles can augment their conductivity while enhancing the interfacial conductivity between different silicate structures within both the silicone matrix and silicone particles. Additionally, this methodology enables the formation of confinement layers on the surfaces of high-silicon-to-oxygen ratio particles, which effectively alleviates the volume expansion caused by lithium deintercalation.
Recently, solid-state batteries have become one of the most talked-about topics in the automotive industry. In China's A-share market, stocks related to solid-state batteries have experienced remarkable surges. The successful industrialization of solid-state batteries primarily depends on surmounting the challenges associated with material development.
Anode materials constitute one of the crucial innovative elements in solid-state battery technology. Currently, graphite anodes are nearing their theoretical reversible capacity limit of 372 mAh/g. To further augment the energy density in lithium-ion batteries, it is indispensable to develop anode materials with higher capacities. Silicon-based anodes possess a theoretical capacity that is ten times greater than that of graphite and are regarded as having the highest known capacity among lithium-ion battery anodes. The utilization of silicon-based anode materials can increase the mass energy density by over 8% and also reduce the cost per kilowatt-hour by at least 3%.
Furthermore, solid-state battery systems can effectively mitigate some of the drawbacks associated with silicon electrodes. For example, within sulfide systems where electrolytes exhibit high ionic conductivity, this facilitates ion diffusion within silicon electrode sheets and cushions against the volume changes endured by these electrodes.