California Lithium Battery (CalBattery) have signed a licensing agreement with the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory. Argonne developed a silicon-graphene composite anode material (called GEN3) for high-energy lithium batteries, and CalBattery plans to commercialize this technology rapidly. Tests show that the new anode triples the energy capacity of the state-of-the-art graphite anode.
CalBattery and Argonne has been working together for over a year under a Work for Others agreement to develop this technology. Back in October 2012 CalBattery said that in independent full cell tests, the material shows unrivaled performance characteristics: an energy density of 525WH/Kg and specific anode capacity 1,250mAh/g. Just to compare, most commercial LIBs have an energy density of between 100-180WH/kg and a specific anode capacity of 325mAh/g.