EnerG2 is using the hard carbon as a structurally reinforcing and electrochemical-enhancing backbone for silicon, said Dr. Aaron Feaver, Co-Founder and CTO of EnerG2. The composite of silicon and carbon addresses the problem of severe volumetric change and subsequent material damage and degradation of capacity and cycle life experienced by silicon.

EnerG2 says that its silicon-carbon solution provides a 5X improvement in battery cycle life over whatever silicon they incorporate into the matrix, while while maintaining a significant improvement in energy density.

In other words, the technology allows silicon which might cycle 100 times to increase its cycle life to 500 times. While cycle life depends on the quality of silicon that is used, the 5x claim is based on the improvement over using the silicon with just carbon black and binder vs. incorporating it into the EnerG2 carbon matrix.

The technology is compatible with future improvements in silicon materials and is designed to leverage increased material stability at a consistently low cost.

Energ2’s manufacturing facility is dedicated to the commercial-scale production of nano-engineered carbon material for high-performance energy storage applications. The 74,000 square foot plant located in Albany, Oregon came online in February 2012 and has been successfully upgraded to achieve compatibility with EnerG2’s new carbon-silicon solution.

Our competitors are still working in the lab. Meanwhile, we’re able to work rapidly at large scale, because this new product is a drop-in for our existing plant. US manufacturing as a whole will benefit from our breakthrough, now that we’re competing as a successful lithium-ion battery materials supplier against Korea, Japan and China.

—Rick Luebbe, EnerG2’s Co-Founder and CEO