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.

Scientists have long wanted to use silicon in the anode of a lithium ion battery because it can hold more energy per given volume than the traditional graphite that is commonly used — so a silicon anode battery could be smaller and…