This expansion may pulverize the anode, resulting in poor performance. To fix this problem scientists looked into varying the dimensionality of the Si. Many studies have been developed in Si nanowires, Si tubes as well as Si sheets. As a result, composite hierarchical Si anodes have become the major technology for future applications in Lithium Ion Batteries. In the early 2020s technology is reaching commercial levels with factories being built for mass production of anodes in the United States. Furthermore, metallic Lithium is another possible candidate for the anode. It boasts a higher specific capacity than Silicon, however, does come with the drawback of working with the highly unstable metallic lithium. Similarly to graphite anodes, dendrite formation is another major limitation of metallic lithium, with the solid electrolyte interphase being a major design challenge. In the end, if stabilized, metallic lithium would be able to produce batteries that hold the most charge, while being the lightest. Mechanical Properties
A common failure mechanism of batteries is mechanical shock, which breaks either the electrode or the system’s container, leading to poor conductivity and electrolyte leakage. However, the relevance of mechanical properties of electrodes goes beyond the resistance to collisions due to its environment. During standard operation, the incorporation of ions into electrodes leads to a change in volume. This is well exemplified by Si electrodes in Lithium-ion batteries expanding around 300% during lithiation. Such change may lead to the deformations in the lattice and, therefore stresses in the material.
In which the 
  
    
      
        λ
      
    
    {\displaystyle \lambda }
   is the reorganisation energy. Filling this result in the classically derived Arrhenius equation

leads to

With A being the pre-exponential factor which is usually experimentally determined, although a semi classical derivation provides more information as will be explained below. This classically derived result qualitatively reproduced observations of a maximum electron transfer rate under the conditions 
  
    
      
        Δ
        
          G
          
            †
          
        
        =
        λ
      
    
    {\displaystyle \Delta G^{\dagger }=\lambda }
  . For a more extensive mathematical treatment one could read the paper by Newton.