defense

New Generation Rechargeable Battery Technologies and TOGG Battery

Global lithium-ion battery production capacity is currently at 30 GWh (Gigawatt hours). It is estimated that this number will increase to 180 GWh in the 2030s. Turkey, which will reach a capacity of 25 GWh in 2023, has started the necessary investments to become one of the world's top five producers in this field.

The batteries used today in our mobile phones, electric bicycles and vehicles, and even the promising lithium batteries, mark an interim transition period.

The future will be batteries and energy systems that can store energy for longer. These will be batteries that can store energy for much longer periods of time, along with high-capacity batteries that can be charged more quickly. World companies are also carrying out very serious studies on this subject.

I believe that one example of this will be nuclear batteries such as the battery of the Perseverance mission vehicle on Mars.

In other words, endless energy, non-polluted air, infinitely low energy costs... And nations that cannot catch up with this era.

Global lithium-ion battery production capacity is still at the level of 30 GWh (Gigawatt hours). In the 2030s, this figure is expected to increase to 180 GWh. Turkey, which will reach a capacity of 25 GWh in 2023, has started the necessary investments to become one of the world's five largest producers in this field.

The Mobile World Congress, one of the world's leading technology fairs held every year, is a fairground where the latest technologies are exhibited. From cell phones to electric cars, all the innovations of the technology world are on display at this fair. However, whether it is artificial intelligence or the Internet of Things, without powerful battery technologies, the technologies of the future are unlikely to be successful. For this reason, the 4.5 billion dollar investments in mining and next-generation battery technologies announced by Zorlu Holding and China's GSR Capital have aroused great interest in our country.

While there are thousands of companies worldwide that produce mobile devices, especially mobile phones, and electric vehicles, the number of battery manufacturers, which are indispensable for these devices and vehicles, is limited to six. The countries leading the production of lithium-ion type batteries produced by these companies are China, the USA, South Korea and Poland. As Turkey, we will join these countries in 2023.

These countries plan to continue their dominance in the near future by focusing on their existing investments.

Currently, lithium-ion battery production worldwide is expected to increase with the new investments to be made by these countries, and the number and models of electric and rechargeable vehicles produced are expected to increase.

Turkey has just started its efforts to become a partner in the newly emerging battery market with a capacity of 25 GWh as of 2023.

As of this date, sales of electric cars, which are still very low, are expected to accelerate.

In this regard, it has been announced that in addition to the ongoing production of the TOGG brand vehicle in our country, sales will also start as of April 2023.

According to Mehmet Gürcan Karakaş's statement, TOGG, the domestic car that will start production in 2022 and officially go on sale in 2023, will be produced with a 51% local content rate. Three years later, this rate will increase to 68%. The battery modules and packages of Togg vehicles will be manufactured in Gemlik from the very beginning of production.

However, the lithium-ion batteries to be used in the battery will be produced in China by Farasis and imported to Turkey. With the start of production at the facility to be established for Siro Energy, lithium ion batteries will also be localized and the parts supply of Togg brand vehicles will be largely met by domestic means.

With this acceleration in technology, the capacities of batteries produced for electric cars and the distances that these vehicles can cover with a single charge will increase and they will develop further. The distances of electric vehicles, which are limited to 200-300 kilometers on average according to current production technologies, will reach 500-600 kilometers with powerful batteries, making electric cars a strong alternative.

It would be wrong to limit today's rechargeable battery technology only to electric cars. As is the case today, the mobile sector will largely shape the technologies of the future.

For example, a company in the US announced that it has developed a solid battery suitable for electric cars that can be fully charged in minutes and last more than twice as long as existing batteries.

The entrepreneurial company that came out of Harvard University is Adden Energy. After successfully running a prototype of a watch battery that can be charged in three minutes and has more than 10,000 charge cycles over its lifetime, it has announced that it has received $5.15 million in funding to commercialize and further advance its technology in the near future.

A study on battery technologies in Turkey is also being carried out with Aspilsan. In a statement made by the Ministry of Industry and Technology, it was announced that investments in lithium-ion batteries are being supported in Turkey and that efforts are being made to make Turkey an important player in the battery industry and storage technologies.

In the Turkish Armed Forces, new batteries have been added to the batteries used in many areas from robotic systems to guidance kits, radios to torpedoes. ASPİLSAN Energy, which powers the Turkish army, has reached a production capacity of 24 thousand units per day with its new investment, the lithium ion cylindrical battery production facility. In addition to military technologies, rechargeable batteries are also used in areas such as hybrid vehicles and medicine, and their use will increase with the developing sectors and industrial branches.

Another new battery technology that has started to enter our lives is Lithium-iron-phosphate (LiFePO4 or LFP) batteries. This technology was developed by the Massachusetts University of Technology (MIT) in 2003. Its basis is an advanced Li-ion technology with a changing chemical composition: In this technology, lithium ferrophosphate is used for the anode instead of lithium cobaltate. Hence the name Li Fe or Lithium Iron. The battery is now widely distributed and used thanks to companies like Motorola and Qualcomm.

Chinese manufacturers currently have a near monopoly on the production of the LFP battery type. With the expiration of patents in 2022 and the increasing demand for cheaper batteries, LFP type battery production is expected to increase to surpass lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) type batteries in 2028.

Kontrolmatik Technology, also from our country, announced that it will establish a lithium ion battery cell and energy storage systems factory with a capacity of 3 gigawatt-hours/year in South Carolina, USA and will start production in 2024. Stating that investments in energy storage technologies will increase in order to ensure energy supply security in the next 20 years, Osman Şahin Köşker, General Manager of Kontrolmatik Technology, said: "We are starting production in Turkey's first lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4 or LFP) based lithium battery plant this year. Our LFP investment in the USA will start production in 2024." Köşker stated that lithium iron phosphate batteries (LiFePO4 or LFP), a battery technology, will be produced.

In the automotive sector, where more than 100 electric models from various brands are offered for sale in parallel with new developments in the world, electric vehicle options are expected to exceed 500 in the next 10-15 years. With the increase in the number of electric vehicle production, the demand for more powerful and durable batteries is expected to increase rapidly.

Many organizations, especially Tesla, Samsung, LG, Panasonic, LG, Panasonic and BYD, are in fierce competition with each other to become the leading battery supplier of the industry by starting the construction of giant battery factories. With the completion of these factories, millions of batteries with lithium ion technology will hit the market every year and will be installed in all mobile electronic devices, especially automobiles, waiting for assembly.

The reason why the lithium-ion battery factories under construction are called 'Giga-factories' (Gigafactory) is that these facilities produce batteries with a capacity equivalent to at least 1 Gigawatt hour (1 GWh) of energy per year.

According to calculations, Tesla's factory under construction in Nevada, USA, will reach a battery production capacity of 35 GWh per year in 2020. This battery production capacity is equivalent to the annual production capacity of 500,000 Tesla electric vehicles.

35 GWh of battery production capacity would be enough for 500,000 Tesla electric vehicles or one million smaller electric vehicles.

China, on the other hand, has set a target to reach a total annual lithium-ion battery capacity of 121 GWh in 2021 by building many of the factories that Tesla continues to build across the country.

This is estimated to be enough for at least 1.5 million Tesla Model S or 14 million small/medium-sized electric cars.

Of course, it should be reminded that this capacity is only the entry level for China.

The country is in a great effort to do whatever it takes to become the global leader in electric cars.

By 2025, when the sales figures of electric cars start to increase, China aims to produce at least 150 GWh of batteries annually with its battery factories.

As a result of new technology development efforts, scientists have opened the door to a revolutionary new development in the field of energy storage. A group of researchers from the Institute of Basic Sciences in South Korea and the University of Insubria in Italy have made progress in producing a new type of battery charging technology. With the technology developed in this study, they have suggested that the charging time of batteries can be reduced to seconds.

According to the quantum battery technology developed as a result of this study and research, it is evaluated that the charging time of electric cars at home can be reduced from 10 hours to three minutes by using quantum battery technology. They calculated that the time for supercharging stations to charge an automobile could be 90 seconds, i.e. 1.5 minutes. This is less than the time it takes to refuel our cars today.

However, if these studies are successful, scientists believe that a new era of ultra-efficient batteries is coming, changing the way we use everything from smartphones to electric cars.

The latest study is published in the journal Quantum Science and Technology under the title 'Micromassors as quantum batteries'.

Alternative energy sources, especially solar and wind, which we are not yet talking about but will be on our agenda in the near future, will also become interesting with powerful battery technologies that enable storage. The power of the panels for the sun will increase and the door to using electricity all day long with 1-2 hours of sun will be opened.

Could one of these be the high-capacity NANO-DIAMOND BATTERIES that will not need charging for 90 years in electric cars?

As a result of all these events and developments, rechargeable battery technology and the long time periods needed in the charging times of electric vehicles do not reduce the price difference between gasoline vs electric vehicles. When you use fast charging technologies according to the priority situation, we encounter almost break-even costs.

However, electric vehicles are more advantageous in daily use in urban traffic. If you have a private garage, electric vehicles can become more advantageous with an option such as plugging it into the socket in the evening and picking it up in the morning. The reason is that charging can be done at a cheaper cost with the socket at home or with a home charger to be installed.

The fact that faster battery-vehicle charging is possible with new battery technologies and that charging stations have reached a certain standard actually constitutes the essence of electric vehicles and batteries, the essence of this subject.

For those who often have to travel long distances as an automobile user, electric vehicles still bring many problems.

These are the availability of fast car charging stations towards the destination and the fact that when you need one, it is empty.

Another problem is that there are mostly AC charging stations and AC charging takes hours and hours to fully charge the vehicles to 100% capacity. Fast charging of vehicles is only possible with DC stations.