In the quest to get more capacity from electric vehicle batteries, automakers are increasingly turning to silicon, a widely available but brittle component that promises to increase capacity by at least 20 percent.
Sila, Group14, Enovix and Amprius are trying to commercialize their silicon anode technology, hoping to capitalize on consumer desire for an ever-widening range of EVs.
Ionobellan early-stage startup, hopes to top that list, claiming its silicon hardware will be cheaper than established competition.
The small startup uses an approach more similar to Sila and Group14. Both established companies impregnate porous graphite structures with silicon. Sila also adds a coating to the particles. Ionobell appears to be flipping the script, according to the company patents. It starts with a porous structure of silicon instead of graphite and then surrounds it with a coating.
“It’s not bloated,” Ionobell co-founder and CEO Robert Neivert told TechCrunch. “Like dropping a nerf ball into water, it’s absorbed without changing the outer shell.”
Silicon can accept 10 times more lithium ions than graphite. But it swells a lot in the process, so much so that an ordinary silicon anode can crumble with repeated use. This fragility prevented manufacturers from incorporating too much of the element, typically less than 10%.
However, the promise of silicon is too great to ignore.
Ionobell’s silicon supply comes from a scrap material, Neivert said, which helps keep costs down. “Most of the cost savings is hardware,” he said, adding that Ionobell’s hardware is cheaper than graphite.
Neevert initially met Ionobell as an investor. At first, he said, “I dismissed them as an investment,” telling them all the reasons why auto suppliers wouldn’t adopt their technology. The team went back to work, solving the issues to Neivert’s satisfaction, including adapting their material to work on widely used manufacturing equipment. Neevert found some seed funding and joined them as CEO.
The last round closed in 2020, according to PitchBook. Recently, however, Ionobell closed a $3.9 million non-seed expansion, according to TechCrunch exclusively. Dynamo Ventures and Trucks VC led the round.
Such extensions have become more common as deep-tech companies run short on capital but struggle to raise a new round of prices as markets begin to recover from a frothy start to the 2020s.
Like other battery material companies, Ionobell faces a difficult road ahead. The validation process required by car manufacturers can be long and arduous. not every material makes it.
In addition, competitors such as Group14 and Sila are close to commercialization and their silicon-rich risers will be on the market as early as this year and next.
Ionobell has a lot of ground to make up, although its promise of a lower price could give it a boost. Whatever the case, the next wave in lithium-ion innovation is almost here, and silicon is leading the pack.
