Battery packs a punch

Researchers have demonstrated that battery operated devices will run longer between charges with greater amounts of stored energy using a new lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery based on silicon anodes. The technology, which is being commercialised through Imperial College spin-out Nexeon, replaces the carbon-based anodes used in Li-ion batteries with silicon anodes. The developers claim that silicon allows a greater charge to be stored within the battery and it is found to provide much higher performance as an anode material, with charge densities about 10 times that of carbon. The Nexeon technology, which is based on work by Imperial professor, Mino Green, overcomes the problem of physical instability in conventional silicon by changing the physical form or morphology of the silicon.