The Farday Battery Challenge aims to make the United Kingdom a go-to destination for researching, developing, manufacturing, and producing novel battery technologies for automotive and other industrial sectors. Emerging from the Faraday Battery Challenge has been the development of silicon-based materials with the aim of replacing carbon in the anode of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries.
This particular project has drawn some notable partners such as the University College London (UCL) and Synthomer, a manufacturer and developer of polymer. These collaborations contribute to the project’s name known as SUNRISE (Synthomer, UCL, and Nexeon’s Rapid Improvement in the Storage of Energy). According to Nexeon, costs of the project are totaling around £10 million, with about £7 million being provided by Innovate UK.
One of the project’s most important goals is to overcome a major issue with silicon in Li-ion batteries; the expansion and contraction of the anode when cells are charged and discharged. This facet limits proportions of silicon in the anode to around 10 percent, which can be resolved (as claimed by Nexeon) through an innovative version of silicon. This particular form of silicon being developed is combined with a polymer binder and optimized by Synthomer, which is also aiming to ensure that cohesion between binder and silicon isn’t compromised over the battery’s lifetime. The combination of silicon and binder will allow additional silicon to be applied in the anode, which will increase the cell’s energy density storage potential.
UCL, however, will jointly spearhead research efforts on material characterization and cell performance. This circles back to the project’s primary goal in developing a drop-in replacement for graphite-based anodes to increase the effective range of electric vehicles using these batteries to ranges of at least 400 miles on a single charge. Silicon anodes have become established on technology road maps of mainstream automotive OEMs, with many being involved throughout the ongoing development of this project.
UCL has emphasized how pleased they are to be working on this project, whose importance they stressed for future development of battery electric vehicles.