The lithium ion battery could get a boost from the humble
pomegranate. According to researchers at Stanford, including Amprius
founder Yi Cui, and the
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory,
clustering tiny silicon particles in a hard carbon rind — like seeds in
a pomegranate — could be a helpful design breakthrough for using
silicon in the next generation of lithium ion batteries.
A lithium-ion battery — the standard being used in gadgets today — is
made up of three pieces: an anode, a cathode and an electrolyte that
shuttles lithium-ions between the cathode and anode. That shuttling
process is what happens when you charge and discharge a battery.