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silicon battery anode tease stands out, but what is the commercial reality?","teslas-silicon-battery-anode-tease-stands-out-but-what-is-the-commercial-reality","article/teslas-silicon-battery-anode-tease-stands-out-but-what-is-the-commercial-reality",{"_uid":557,"date":558,"tags":559,"editor":560,"content":570,"excerpt":777,"featured":50,"reporter":778,"_editable":782,"component":783,"seo_title":553,"categories":784,"visibility":788,"author_company":49,"featured_image":789,"seo_description":777,"author_full_name":49,"author_job_title":49,"formattedDate":794,"formattedArticleDate":795},"96f45164-da61-4de3-a1b0-8a8ab11f89d1","2020-09-25 00:00",[],[561],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":564},"didi-bostock","Didi Bostock",{"job_title":565,"image":566,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},"Editor - Energy Transition & Economics",{"filename":567},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/512x512/2c5ca5c1a3/didi-bostock.jpeg","Didi is the Energy Transition & Economics Editor at Benchmark, covering a broad range of markets across the energy transition. His remit spans from downstream sectors such as BESS and EVs, through to midstream such as new technologies and battery production, to upstream critical minerals mining. He also leads on financial analysis across these supply chains, alongside in-depth policy analysis.\n","https://www.linkedin.com/in/didi-bostock-656342198/",{"type":571,"content":572},"doc",[573,580,585,590,599,606,611,616,621,626,631,636,641,646,651,657,662,667,672,677,682,687,692,697,702,707,712,717,722,727,732,737,742,747,752,757,762,767,772],{"type":574,"attrs":575,"content":576},"paragraph",{"textAlign":49},[577],{"text":578,"type":579},"“By leveraging the silicon to its potential we can increase the range of our vehicles by 20%,” Tesla’s Senior Vice President, Drew Baglino of Powertrain and Energy Engineering explained at the long awaited Battery Day 2020.","text",{"type":574,"attrs":581,"content":582},{"textAlign":49},[583],{"text":584,"type":579},"It was one of the headline grabbers on an evening in California that witnessed nine major claims or innovations across the lithium ion battery supply chain, which if all came true, would drop cell costs by nearly 50%.",{"type":574,"attrs":586,"content":587},{"textAlign":49},[588],{"text":589,"type":579},"Yet while the potential of silicon anodes is and has been huge since research began in the early 1990s, the commercial advent of pure (100%) silicon anodes in the lithium ion battery is still far from certain.",{"type":574,"attrs":591,"content":592},{"textAlign":49},[593,595,597],{"text":594,"type":579},"Here, ",{"text":596,"type":579},"Benchmark ",{"text":598,"type":579}," looks at why this is still the case, digs deeper into Tesla’s claims and the potential future anode landscape.",{"type":600,"attrs":601,"content":603},"heading",{"level":602,"textAlign":49},4,[604],{"text":605,"type":579},"Ambiguity shone through ",{"type":574,"attrs":607,"content":608},{"textAlign":49},[609],{"text":610,"type":579},"The first thing we should note is the ambiguity that clouded Tesla’s silicon anode announcement.",{"type":574,"attrs":612,"content":613},{"textAlign":49},[614],{"text":615,"type":579},"The principle benefits of silicon were first outlined by Baglino:",{"type":574,"attrs":617,"content":618},{"textAlign":49},[619],{"text":620,"type":579},"“Why is silicon awesome? It’s awesome because it’s the most abundant element in the earth’s crust after oxygen…which means it’s everywhere, it’s sand.”",{"type":574,"attrs":622,"content":623},{"textAlign":49},[624],{"text":625,"type":579},"“And it happens to store nine times more lithium than graphite which is the typical anode material today.”",{"type":574,"attrs":627,"content":628},{"textAlign":49},[629],{"text":630,"type":579},"The capacity benefits of silicon were made clear. The draw backs were also outlined with clarity for a mainstream audience:",{"type":574,"attrs":632,"content":633},{"textAlign":49},[634],{"text":635,"type":579},"“The main reason it expands four-times when fully charged with lithium” Baglino said.",{"type":574,"attrs":637,"content":638},{"textAlign":49},[639],{"text":640,"type":579},"“With silicon the cookie crumbles and gets gooey,” Tesla CEO, Elon Musk added in more simplistic terms.",{"type":574,"attrs":642,"content":643},{"textAlign":49},[644],{"text":645,"type":579},"The Tesla executives then went on to explain how they were aiming to solve this expansion issue and make it last in an electric vehicle battery, which until now has evaded the world’s battery academics.",{"type":574,"attrs":647,"content":648},{"textAlign":49},[649],{"text":650,"type":579},"The base solution outlined by Baglino and Musk was the coating of a silicon anode particle with what Tesla described as a “an elastic ion conducting polymer”, a jacket that wraps around the silicon particle limiting the four-times expansion it experiences on charge.",{"type":574,"attrs":652,"content":653},{"textAlign":49},[654,655],{"text":596,"type":579},{"text":656,"type":579},"believes this is the resulting IP from a quiet acquisition Tesla made in Q1 2020 of silicon anode researcher, SilLion.",{"type":574,"attrs":658,"content":659},{"textAlign":49},[660],{"text":661,"type":579},"Should that be the case early studies in 2013 academic literature by SiLion’s founder, Daniela Molina Piper, show this coating to be a commercially available chemical known as polyacrylonitrile used in the manufacture of synthetic textiles.",{"type":574,"attrs":663,"content":664},{"textAlign":49},[665],{"text":666,"type":579},"Tesla did not give any insight into whether this was laboratory scale, at pilot stage – like their new 4680 tab-less lithium ion battery cell – or in commercial production, leaving more questions than answers.",{"type":574,"attrs":668,"content":669},{"textAlign":49},[670],{"text":671,"type":579},"What stood out was the lack of a big number: the percentage of silicon will be used in the anode.",{"type":574,"attrs":673,"content":674},{"textAlign":49},[675],{"text":676,"type":579},"The audience was led to believe that Tesla had cracked the code and developed 100% silicon anodes for commercial use today.",{"type":574,"attrs":678,"content":679},{"textAlign":49},[680],{"text":681,"type":579},"Benchmark’s MD, Simon Moores, described Musk and Baglino’s approach as “sensibly cryptic”.",{"type":574,"attrs":683,"content":684},{"textAlign":49},[685],{"text":686,"type":579},"Silicon has been added to graphite anodes for the last five years in the range of 3-6%. Since the commercial advent of this, this range has not really shifted due to the issues the world’s lithium ion battery producers have faced with expansion and resulting degradation.",{"type":574,"attrs":688,"content":689},{"textAlign":49},[690],{"text":691,"type":579},"Prior to Tesla’s Battery Day, Benchmark Analyst expected Tesla to push the boundaries with 10-15% silicon which would still represent a breakthrough and leap forward for lithium ion capacity.",{"type":574,"attrs":693,"content":694},{"textAlign":49},[695],{"text":696,"type":579},"This may still prove to be the case should Tesla reveal more details in the future.",{"type":574,"attrs":698,"content":699},{"textAlign":49},[700],{"text":701,"type":579},"Benchmark’s expectation is that Tesla is still at prototype stage, focusing on getting various percentages of silicon and graphite anodes working at Fremont with its new 4680 cell.",{"type":574,"attrs":703,"content":704},{"textAlign":49},[705],{"text":706,"type":579},"This is one to watch closely.",{"type":600,"attrs":708,"content":709},{"level":602,"textAlign":49},[710],{"text":711,"type":579},"“Graphite ain’t going nowhere” ",{"type":574,"attrs":713,"content":714},{"textAlign":49},[715],{"text":716,"type":579},"While silicon’s role in the anode has increased, and Tesla’s suggestion of a breakthrough in silicon anodes has drawn plenty of attention, today’s lithium ion battery anodes are predominantly made up of graphite, both natural and synthetic.",{"type":574,"attrs":718,"content":719},{"textAlign":49},[720],{"text":721,"type":579},"“Graphite ain’t going nowhere: both natural and synthetic will be the dominant anode for the next decade [with] >90% market share” Benchmark’s Moores tweeted.",{"type":574,"attrs":723,"content":724},{"textAlign":49},[725],{"text":726,"type":579},"Graphite is so good as an anode both because of its reasonable cost, ranging from $6/kg to $12/kg, and because it is structurally stable in a lithium ion battery – it has generally never been the top of the lists of problems for battery makers with nickel, cobalt and lithium usually higher.",{"type":574,"attrs":728,"content":729},{"textAlign":49},[730],{"text":731,"type":579},"There has been ongoing debate over which form of graphite is the best suited for anode material, the trend is for a blend of natural and synthetic graphite to be used to maximise cost savings, performance, capacity and life cycle benefits.",{"type":574,"attrs":733,"content":734},{"textAlign":49},[735],{"text":736,"type":579},"Blending anodes also allows battery makers to generally overcome consistency issues by just using one source of material.",{"type":574,"attrs":738,"content":739},{"textAlign":49},[740],{"text":741,"type":579},"While this makes scaling different, this trend is set to remain.",{"type":574,"attrs":743,"content":744},{"textAlign":49},[745],{"text":746,"type":579},"Benchmark’s Graphite Forecast is showing that in 2020 graphite materials accounted for 97% of the market — 58% synthetic graphite, 39% natural flake graphite, whereas silicon materials represented less than 1% of this.",{"type":574,"attrs":748,"content":749},{"textAlign":49},[750],{"text":751,"type":579},"Benchmark is forecasting silicon’s share of the market to increase – to 5% of anode materials in 2020 – but graphite will remain the dominant anode material through the 2020s and will hold more than 90% of the market.",{"type":574,"attrs":753,"content":754},{"textAlign":49},[755],{"text":756,"type":579},"In particular, flake graphite’s role in the market will increase dramatically, both in terms of market share – from 39% of the market today to a forecast 49% in 2020 – and volume, scaling from 170,000 tonnes of battery demand to 2.6 million tonnes by the end of the decade, which is over 3.5x times the size of the total industry today.",{"type":574,"attrs":758,"content":759},{"textAlign":49},[760],{"text":761,"type":579},"While silicon’s role has remained steady yet benefitted from the overall anode market, Benchmark expects natural and synthetic graphite to continue to be the main technology used in anode materials as there are a number of obstacles on the path to commercialisation of pure silicon anodes.",{"type":574,"attrs":763,"content":764},{"textAlign":49},[765],{"text":766,"type":579},"As an additive, silicon’s role in the anode will continue to grow and Benchmark’s models show this growing to over 5% of the market by the end of the decade. Benchmark’s latest Anode Market Assessment showed that silicon accounted for 3% of the 685,000 tonnes per annum of anode capacity currently under construction globally.",{"type":574,"attrs":768,"content":769},{"textAlign":49},[770],{"text":771,"type":579},"The statements made by Tesla during its battery day need further clarification. For now, Benchmark expects that Tesla will work on a pure silicon anode prototype, but will focus its efforts on increasing the silicon additives to above the Benchmark target of 10%.",{"type":574,"attrs":773,"content":774},{"textAlign":49},[775],{"text":776,"type":579},"But for the wider supply chain – and still for Tesla – graphite must remain the focus to ramp up lithium ion cell production.","“By leveraging the silicon to its potential we can increase the range of our vehicles by 20%,” Tesla’s Senior Vice President, Drew Baglino of Powertrain and Energy Engineering explained at the long awaited Battery Day 2020. It was one of the headline grabbers on an evening in California that witnessed nine major claims or innovations […]",[779],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":780},{"job_title":565,"image":781,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},{"filename":567},"\u003C!--#storyblok#{\"name\": \"article\", \"space\": \"\", \"uid\": \"96f45164-da61-4de3-a1b0-8a8ab11f89d1\", \"id\": \"\"}-->","article",[785],{"slug":786,"name":787},"batteries","Batteries","private",{"id":49,"alt":790,"name":790,"focus":790,"title":790,"source":790,"filename":791,"copyright":790,"fieldtype":792,"meta_data":793,"is_external_url":51},"","https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/e73b935d45/bm-tesla-presentation-silicon-anodes-2-e1601035566171.png","asset",{"alt":790,"title":790,"source":790,"copyright":790},"Sep 25, 2020","25th September 2020",[],[],1792773939130]