Battery technology company Coreshell today announced the electric vehicle (EV) industry's first commercial-scale 60 Ah battery cells made using an anode with 100 percent domestically-sourced metallurgical silicon (MG-Si). Coreshell's MG-Si battery cells offer a tenfold increase in specific capacity compared to graphite anodes, while cutting material costs by up to 50 percent.

In addition, the technology delivers a 29 percent reduction in carbon emissions compared to traditional LFP/graphite batteries. This advancement marks a key milestone in the company's effort to revolutionize batteries with more efficient, sustainable materials and is particularly significant as China currently controls nearly 93 percent of the global graphite supply chain.

The heavy reliance on Chinese graphite is a major vulnerability for the EV industry because China holds a near monopoly on graphite processing, giving them significant control over the supply and price of this critical material. Coreshell's ability to replace graphite entirely with domestically sourced metallurgical silicon offers a powerful advantage in reducing supply chain risks, enhancing sustainability, and driving down costs.

With its 60 Ah battery cells ready for commercialization, Coreshell is starting production at its newly-built 4 MWh manufacturing facility in San Leandro, California, while simultaneously moving forward with a 100 MWh facility, which is currently in site selection and design phase. In 2025, Coreshell will deliver A-samples of its 60 Ah battery cells to global automakers.

"While many battery innovations focus on range, we recognized that cost and scalability are the key hurdles for mass adoption, as today's average consumer is still priced out," said Jonathan Tan, CEO of Coreshell. "Our technology has proven to outperform graphite-anode batteries in terms of carbon emissions, cost, and scalability. We've quickly scaled from prototype 5 Ah cells to full 60 Ah automotive cells, using standard equipment from South Korea's Top Materials. This technology allows us to produce batteries that are 25 percent cheaper per kWh than the current graphite-based batteries and 100 percent domestically sourceable in the US and EU."

Coreshell's use of domestically sourced metallurgical silicon in combination with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathodes addresses two major challenges facing the EV industry today—cost and scalability. Unlike synthetic silicon, which has been engineered to mitigate swelling and is up to 20 times more expensive than graphite, Coreshell's approach uses unrefined metallurgical silicon as a starting point.

This metallurgical silicon is half the cost of graphite on a per kg basis, but also has ten times the specific capacity of graphite anodes. The result is a lower-cost, higher-performing battery that can help drive mass-market adoption of electric vehicles.

 

Source: prnewswire.com

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