Alameda Materials, a California materials company, spent the past decade trying to increase the energy stored within lithium-ion battery cells. This could allow for smaller gadgets and more range electric vehicles.
Sila has created silicon-based particles that can replace graphite in anodes, and hold more lithium ions.
The company now delivers its product to market, including a small amount of anode powder in the battery for the Whoop 4.0 fitness wearable. This device is small but could be a significant step forward in the battery industry, which often fails to see promising laboratory results translate into commercial success.
The Whoop 4.0 is like a Tesla Roadster. Gene Berdichevsky (Silas CEO) said that the Whoop 4.0 was Tesla's seventh employee and helped to solve critical battery problems for its first electric car. This is the breakthrough device that's on the market.
Sila's silicon-based particle technology is used to make battery cells. SILA
With a little help from other advancements, the company's materials increased the energy density of the fitness trackers battery to around 17%. This is a huge improvement in a field that tends to only advance by a few percentage points per year.
It's equivalent to four years of standard progression, but in one huge leap, according to Venkat Viswanathan (an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University).
Although Sila faces many technical hurdles, the advancement is a positive sign about the potential for more powerful batteries that can help the world move away from fossil fuels in the face of increasing climate change dangers. It is easier to use clean electricity sources to power our homes, factories, cars, and other businesses by increasing the energy storage capacity of batteries.
A more energy-dense battery for transportation can lower the cost or increase the range of electric cars. This addresses two major issues that discourage consumers from quitting their gas-guzzlers. It promises grid batteries that can store more energy from solar or wind farms. This will allow consumers to have longer battery life.
Berdichevsky, Innovator Under 35, believes that energy density is key to electrification.
The new fitness wearable was made possible by novel battery materials and other improvements. Boston-based Whoop was able to shrink the device 33% while still maintaining five days of battery power. It is thin enough to fit into smart clothing and be worn as a watch. The product will go on sale September 8.
Sila announced $590 million of funding in January. There are also partnerships to develop battery materials for automakers such as BMW and Daimler. According to the company, its technology could pack up to 40% more energy in lithium-ion batteries.
Fire prevention
Berdichevsky applied for and was hired by Tesla just before he finished his senior year at Stanford University. He was working towards a degree as a mechanical engineer. Berdichevsky played a crucial role in solving a potential existential threat to the company. He realized that any fire in any of the thousands of battery packs in a vehicle could ignite the entire pack.
He created a program to evaluate various battery pack designs. The company came up with a combination of heat transfer materials and battery arrangements that prevented many runaway fires after hundreds of testing.
Berdichevsky felt that he needed to commit to five more years in order to see Tesla through the development of its next vehicle.
He decided that he wanted to create his own building.
Gene Berdichevsky is chief executive officer and cofounder at Sila. DAVID PAUL MORRIS/SILA
Berdichevsky returned to Stanford to complete a master's program in materials, thermodynamics and physics. He hopes to find ways to improve storage at a fundamental level. He spent one year at Sutter Hill Ventures as an entrepreneur-in-residence, searching for new ideas that could be the foundation of his own company.
He came across a scientific paper that described a method of producing silicon-based particles for the production of lithium-ion batteries anodes.
Because silicon atoms bond with 10x more lithium ions than graphite, researchers have long considered it a promising method to increase energy in batteries. They are able to hold more charged molecules, which produce electric current in a batteries. However, silicon anodes were more likely to burst during charging because they expanded to hold the ions that travel back and forth between the electrodes.
Gleb Yushin from Georgia Institute of Technology co-authored the paper. He highlighted the possibility of creating rigid silicon materials with porous cores that can more easily absorb and release lithium ions.
In the following year, Berdichevsky founded Sila along with Yushin and Alex Jacobs (another former Tesla engineer).
Hurtles and delays
The company spent the following ten years perfecting its processes and materials. It went through over 50,000 iterations, while increasing its manufacturing capacity. It decided early on to create drop-in materials that lithium-ion battery manufacturers could swap in for its complete batteries, instead of going the riskier and more costly route of making them all.
Sila isn't as far along as it was initially hoped.
The company secured several million dollars from US Department of Energy's ARPA-E Division. It once told the agency that its materials could be in products by 2017 or vehicles by 2020. When Sila announced the deal with BMW in 2018, it stated that its particles could power the EVs of German automakers by 2023.
Berdichevsky claims that the company expects to be in cars by 2025. To get the best performance from the new materials, it was challenging to work with battery manufacturers.
He said that we were optimistic about scaling and bringing products on the market.
According to Whoop, Sila was able engineer the particles in such a way as to offer safety and life cycles similar to existing products.
