LeydenJar

A 50% increase in energy density due to solar cell industry technology

Achieving more efficient and improved compact energy storage has been a holy grail in various sectors. For example, ongoing developments in electric car and wireless electronics technology rely heavily on batteries that offer greater capacities and lifespans. However, the performance of current lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries only improves marginally each year. The bottleneck stems from the battery’s anode (minus pole); this is made of graphite, a material with limited capacity to bind lithium ions.

LeydenJar has replaced the graphite anode with a 100% silicon anode. This has a capacity 10 times greater than a graphite anode. The result is a battery with a 50% improved capacity for energy storage. For a long time, the industry had looked to silicon as a replacement for graphite. But silicon has one major drawback: the material expands strongly during charging and shrinks again when it discharges, making it brittle and prone to breaking. Silicon was therefore unsuitable as an anode material and only very small quantities could be added to the graphite. A problem now solved by the LeydenJar solution.