Honor unveils the first silicon-carbon battery with 12.8% higher energy density

Most smartphone technologies advance at a rapid pace – chipsets, displays, cameras and so on. All except battery capacity, which increases at a snail’s pace. Honor thinks it has found a solution – the industry’s first silicon-carbon battery.

It promises 12.8% higher energy density compared to current lithium batteries that use graphite for one of the electrodes (the anode). To put that in more concrete terms, the Honor Magic5 Pro has a standard 5,100mAh battery. If it used a silicon-carbon battery instead, it would have had 5,450mAh capacity.

CEO George Zhao was brief on stage, but he did show a couple of charts that offer a quick explanation of why the new battery is better. A standard lithium battery doesn’t have much left in it once its voltage drops to 3.5 volts – this is where silicon-carbon shines as it has 240% more capacity left at 3.5V than the standard battery, which leads to the 12.8% overall improvement

A silicon-carbon battery is 12.8% more energy dense than a typical lithium battery of the same size

Interestingly, the Magic5 Pro in China is listed as having 5,450mAh battery – it seems that the new battery tech is already a reality, not just something tested in the lab. However, the international model is launching with a standard 5,100mAh battery, so we will try to confirm with Honor if the units in China really feature silicon-carbon batteries.