Battery Materials: Next-Gen & Beyond Lithium Ion

As climate change concerns continue to drive interest in clean energy and our daily lives become increasingly digitized and dependent on electronics, electrification has become a widespread trend across almost every industry. The problem is that battery innovation hasn’t kept pace with the electric revolution. Charging time, available capacity, lifetime degradation, and costs are key performance areas that are lacking in batteries today.
While most efforts to enhance battery performance to date have been focused on battery chemistry, this has only led to incremental changes over the past 30 years. The key to the next step-change in battery performances lies within its structure.
This is what Addionics is doing - changing battery architecture to allow the next step-change in battery performance, to any battery chemistry, existing or emerging.

Today, battery performance is limited by active materials. Graphite storage ability is one of the bottlenecks we can solve using Silicon (Si). Our nanoSi and microSi are based on elemental Si; we call our materials REALSiTM, which is not an oxide, nor produced by Silane gas. Advano converts metallurgical Si, including scrap, into battery-grade REALSiTM using proprietary material science technology. REALSiTM offers tailor-made solutions to both solid-state and liquid-electrolyte batteries. We are open to partnerships to accelerate the commercialization of real Si. The next major evolution in batteries is real Si; our team envisions having REALSiTM in every battery.

The silicon nanowire anode technology addresses silicon swelling by enabling silicon to expand and contract internally, in a very robust mechanical structure. As a result, over 1200 Wh/L and 450 Wh/kg levels of energy density were achieved in lithium-ion cells with a cycle life in the hundreds of cycles and fast charging in under 10 minutes, enabling new devices and applications.

BlueSolutions has been commercializing all-solid state batteries since 2011. EVs, buses and stationary applications are the main targets of its research and development program. After more than 15 years, this Bolloré group subsidiary masters all the industrial processes for the production of a unique solid state battery technology. The know-how goes from the transformation of the lithium ingots to the integration of the battery packs within the applications. Importantly, a low-ecological footprint process has been stated for both the positive electrode and the polymer electrolyte manufacturing.
In order to get incomparable energy densities, today, all the industrial actors of lithium batteries are hardly working on the lithium metal technology. In this context, BlueSolutions has a unique 10 years feedback regarding both the behavior of this special anode and of the solid-state electrolyte.
After having spread the first pack generation for 8 years all-over the world, an optimized 650V battery pack addressing the e-buses market is being delivered for one year. To match with customers expectations this new generation offers optimized performance and a very long cyclability. In the meanwhile, BlueSolutions has already started working on its future generation products. While the current battery is LFP-based and cycles at a nominal temperature of 80°C, a lot of efforts are dedicated to improve the actual chemistry. Research programs are conducted on the development of a new positive electrode with higher energy density, new electrolytes that will be compatible with high-voltage materials and which have high conductivity at ambient temperature and optimized lithium electrode. In fine, the goal is to keep the intrinsic safety of the polymer solid electrolyte, while benefiting from the promising performances of new electrode materials.