Group14 Technologies, a Washington state based battery material startup founded in 2015, reports that its SCC55 silicon-carbon anode provides a significant 25% energy density boost.
Farasis Energy, a Chinese battery manufacturer, was able to utilize the SCC55 to increase the energy density of its lithium-ion EV pouch battery cells to 330 Wh/kg, which is almost 27% more than 260 Wh/kg achieved when using a traditional graphite anode.
The volumetric energy density is also high at 750 Wh/l and the cycle-life is "more than 1000 charge-discharge cycles."
"In cells built and tested by Farasis utilizing Group14's flagship silicon-carbon anode material SCC55™, the company has achieved an increase in energy density that would enable them to reach 330 Wh/kg in typical automotive cells with more than 1000 charge-discharge cycles. The battery EV cell will have a volumetric energy density of 750 Wh/l."
"Compared to typical automotive EV batteries on the market today with energy density in the range of 260 Wh/kg, a Farasis Energy automotive battery powered with SCC55™ could increase EV range significantly without compromising cycle life standards set by high-quality graphites and synthetic graphites."
Farasis Energy cells with Group14 Technologies' SCC55 silicon-carbon anode
- 330 Wh/kg
- 750 Wh/l
- "more than 1000 charge-discharge cycles"
Those are serious numbers, delivered from a respectable company. Let's recall that Farasis Energy is a well known name in the battery industry, backed by Daimler, which has owned about 3% of the company since 2020. It supplies batteries for Mercedes-Benz and Geely.
Group14 Technologies, on the other hand, is backed by Amperex Technology Limited (ATL), BASF, Cabot Corporation, Showa Denko and SK materials.
According to the press release, Group14 Technologies is ready to deliver the SCC55 from its "commercial-scale" Battery Active Materials (BAM) factory in Washington state.
Dr. Keith Kepler, CTO of Farasis Energy said:
"Traditional BEV lithium-ion batteries using graphite for anode materials typically can approach 260 Wh/kg energy density, so this performance boost over traditional lithium-ion batteries represents a real breakthrough for EV applications,".
Dr. Rick Costantino, CTO of Group14 Technologies said:
"These significant third-party results with Farasis demonstrate that SCC55™ has the potential to meaningfully impact the performance of batteries for automotive applications. This is a significant milestone in our goal to enable EVs to achieve true cost-parity with internal combustion engines, and Group14 is ready to deliver our lithium-silicon battery technology manufactured in our commercial-scale Battery Active Materials (BAM) factory in Washington state."
According to the Bloomberg's article, Rick Luebbe, chief executive officer of Group14 Technologies, said that its tech is ready for mass production as soon as in 2023:
“People talk about what might be available in 2026 or 2027. This is a today technology that Farasis has validated works right now.”
“We’ll see these in cells in electric vehicles by 2023. But we expect to be in the majority of EV battery cells by 2025.”
The confirmation that the SCC55 silicon-carbon anode works as expected in EV-sized cells is not a big surprise, as we first heard about Farasis Energy's development of sample cells in Spring 2021.
At the time, the company highlighted (source in German) several parameters of its upcoming Gen4 cells:
- over 25% higher energy density (and EV range)
- gravimetric energy density of 330+ Wh/kg
- volumetric energy density of 750+ Wh/l
- fast charging from 10% to 80% SOC in less than 20 minutes
- 90% of nominal capacity available even at -20°C
- over 1,500 cycles (100% DoD) and maintains over 80% of initial capacity
- over 1 million km (over 620,000 miles) of cell lifetime
Farasis Energy's battery manufacturing capacity is at about 23 GWh annually and the company is in a process of expansion in China, Europe and U.S.
Sources: Electrive, PushEVs.com