A team of engineers at the University of California San Diego have created a new type of battery that weaves two promising subfields into a single product. They used both a solid-state electrolyte and an all-silicon anode to produce a silicon all-solid-state battery. Initial rounds of tests show that the new battery is safe, long lasting and energy dense.
“With this battery configuration, we are opening a new territory for solid-state batteries using alloy anodes such as silicon,” says Darren Tan, Ph.D., who headed up the project at the Sustainable Materials and Energy Laboratory. Tan worked with LG Energy on the project and recently co-founded a startup company called UNIGRID Battery that has licensed the technology.