Zentek has announced the patent-pending development of a graphene-wrapped silicon anode material, developed along with Prof. Michael Pope, an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo, and in collaboration Dr. Marianna Uceda and Dr. Zimin She. A paper on this technology has been published in on February 17th and can be found here.
Zentek’s CEO, Greg Fenton, commented: “We are very pleased to support Dr. Pope and his group at the University of Waterloo. Their innovation has the potential to improve the current lithium-ion battery by upgrading graphite to this graphene-wrapped silicon anode. Not only were the researchers able to demonstrate good performance with laboratory-scale half-cells, the performance was also validated with commercial lithium iron phosphate cathodes suggesting they could be a drop-in solution for enhancing already available battery technologies. We look forward to continuing our support of their research and development to potentially bring this technology to market. The company has begun discussions with a potential industry partner.”
Zentek reported on the Key characteristics of the graphene-wrapped silicon anode:
- At practical mass loading of 2.5mg/cm2, the electrode achieved 2.04 mAh/cm2 and retained 79% of this capacity after 200 cycles against a lithium half-cell
- When paired with a commercial lithium iron phosphate cathode, the fully assembled battery retained 93.3% of its initial capacity over 100 cycles
- Works with current lithium-ion batteries as a replacement for graphite
- Requires further development and optimization work before it can be commercialized
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