Honor recently made headlines for its innovative use of a silicon-carbon battery in the Honor Magic 6 Pro, but what is a silicon-carbon battery?
Scroll down to discover everything you need to know about the game-changing battery technology, including what a silicon-carbon battery is, how they work and how they differ from more traditional lithium-ion batteries.
What are silicon-carbon batteries?
Every tech device from the smartphone in your market to the fitness tracker on your wrist needs to get its power from somewhere. For the last 30 or so years, lithium-ion batteries have been the obvious go-to for the smartphone industry. Now, Honor has arrived to shake up the status quo by teasing the use of a silicon-carbon battery in the upcoming Honor Magic 6 Pro.
As you can probably guess from the name, silicon-carbon batteries use a silicon-carbon material to store energy instead of the typical lithium, cobalt and nickel found in the lithium-ion battery that powers your current smartphone.
These materials are hugely damaging to the environment and non-renewable, making them both harmful to our ecosystem and a short-term solution in an industry that doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.
Not only are silicon-carbon batteries more sustainable because silicon is a more abundant resource with a smaller footprint on the environment, but they’re also touted as being safer than lithium-ion batteries due to the reduced risk of overheating.
On top of this, silicon-carbon batteries have a higher energy density compared to lithium-ion batteries. This means that manufacturers can fit a higher battery capacity in the same size battery – or slim down a device without reducing the capacity at all.
Right now, silicon-carbon batteries are just starting to gain traction in the electric vehicle industry where companies like Tesla have propelled their development in recent years.
Honor is the first company to include a silicon-carbon battery in its smartphones, though it’s interesting to note that the Honor Magic 6 Pro isn’t actually the first model to carry one. The company included one in the Honor Magic 5 Pro last year, but the innovative battery technology was reserved for the Chinese market.
It’s great to see Honor do a U-turn on this rather odd difference and offer a wider release of the tech with this year’s flagship.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
