Self-Healing Silicon Batteries from Storedot

Israeli company Storedot claims to have developed a self-healing battery according to Autocar on January 17 2021. This is apparently an extreme-fast-charge lithium battery entering production, which reduces charging time by 50%. Its self-healing silicon batteries could prove to be a game changer for electric vehicles, if the design achieves its promise.

The Silicon at the Heart of the Storedot Battery

The Storedot battery has a silicon-dominant anode replacing graphite as energy store-and-release medium. Now we already know silicon can store 10 times more energy and do so faster. However, until now the problem has been silicon expanding during the process and wrecking the cell.

A Wikipedia article explains Storedot’s self-healing silicon batteries as follows:

1… Storedot’s battery has a fast charging component plus a lithium-ion battery.

2… The fast charging component achieves a full charge within five minutes.

3… This component then recharges the lithium-ion battery at a regular rate.

4… However, multiple charging cycles must follow to fully recharge the lithium battery.

A Future View of Storedot’s Self-Healing Silicon Batteries

The design has progressed since peer groups claimed it was impractical in 2015. Since then, the company obtained capital from Daimler, Samsung, BP Ventures and other investors. Autocar believes Storedot is using nano particles of silicon held in a matrix. This could contain the expansion without detrimental effects.

But Storedot may have taken this innovation further with a ‘self-healing’ technology to seamlessly repair individual damaged cells in the background. Autocar suggests artificial intelligence moves under-performing cells off line, repairs them, and then returns them to service.

This auto-repair process could involve applying a deep, slow discharge followed by a similarly slow recharge. We shall watch further developments with interest and report back. We should say ‘hats off’ to Storedot for taking this bold move forward. Better electric vehicle batteries are part of the solution to global warming.