Lithium Batteries with Durable Silicon Honeycomb (SILICOMB) Anodes

Dismounted soldier batteries play a critical role in the agility and effectiveness of US Army soldiers. Current state of the art graphite anode based lithium ion batteries are becoming very ineffective due to limited specific energy values of <150Wh/kg. Silicon shows great promise for achieving high specific energy values potentially reaching 400Wh/kg. However, it suffers from severe capacity retention issues. During Phase I, Lynntech demonstrated significant improvement in capacity retention for silicon anodes with an advanced wide temperature electrolyte and pulverization resistant SILICOMB structure. Both performance and cycling stability were demonstrated for high areal capacity electrodes for meeting the 400 Wh/kg specific energy target at the cell level. For Phase II, Lynntech will focus on the optimization and scale up of electrode materials along with demonstration in pouch cell format to meet 400 Wh/kg specific energy, 80% capacity retention after 224 cycles, and desired safety specifications. A 150Wh battery system along with BMS will be designed to ensure a battery specific energy of 300Wh/kg and weight of 2.6 lb is achieved.