University boosts Li-ion batteries

摘要

Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada have created a low-cost battery using silicon that boosts the performance and life of lithium-ion batteries. Current lithium-ion batteries normally use graphite anodes, but the University of Waterloo engineers found that silicon anode materials have a much higher capacity for lithium and are capable of producing batteries with almost 10 times more energy. The findings could mean an electric car may be driven up to 500km between charges, and that the smaller, lighter batteries may significantly reduce the overall weight of vehicles. Professor Zhongwei Chen, Canada research chair in advanced materials for clean energy and a member of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology and the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy, said: "Graphite has long been used to build the negative electrodes in lithium-ion batteries, but as batteries improve, graphite is slowly becoming a performance bottleneck because of the limited amount of energy that it can store."