Ferroglobe, a global producer of silicon metal and ferroalloys, and Coreshell, a US-based battery technology company, announced the signature of a memorandum of understanding. Together, the companies expect to produce the first battery-ready metallurgical silicon for the development of low-cost, high-range EV batteries in compliance with the US Inflation Reduction Act.
The partnership will enable the leapfrogging of silane-based silicon and the replacement of graphite in EV batteries, which have bottlenecked the auto industry since the introduction of electric vehicles (EVs), creating cost and range limitations.
EVs suffer from significant cost disadvantages for consumers and automakers alike, with batteries comprising 30 to 40% of the total cost of electric cars. Vehicle manufacturers are interested in using silicon in batteries because it can store up to 10 times more energy in the anodes than graphite. This could potentially result in a 30% increase in driving range.
Coreshell’s proprietary battery technology, featuring a unique nanomaterial electrode coating, is the only proven solution to mitigate the degradation of micrometric silicon, preventing its rapid loss of life while still allowing lithium-ions to pass through. Ferroglobe’s proprietary metallurgical purification process to produce up to 99.995% silicon is cost-effective and does not use any chemical reagent, a key technology for producing affordable silicon active material.
These innovations enable, for the first time, the development of lithium-ion batteries with metallurgical silicon dominant anodes that meet product requirements for lifetime across a range of applications.
“Silicon stores 10 times the energy of graphite and it is available in sufficient quantity and quality. It is the only viable pathway to low-cost, long-range electric vehicle batteries that can be scaled rapidly using a 100% domestic supply chain,” said Jonathan Tan, CEO of Coreshell. “The issue to date is that no one has been able to unlock the power of metallurgical silicon. With Ferroglobe’s silicon and Coreshell’s technology, we have unlocked that power.”
Filed Under: Batteries, Technology News