Blog of Fraunhofer ISI

The "BetterBat" research project has released an open-source database of over 300 lithium-ion battery cells from various manufacturers, with continuous updates. It allows industry and research institutions to benchmark battery cells and determine their suitability for various applications.

It is well known that a large part of battery cell production takes place in Asia, more precisely in China, Korea and Japan. However, it is often overlooked that this market dominance is even more pronounced in the prefabricated production steps of battery manufacturing. More than 90 percent of the main starting materials of a battery cell (i.e. anode, cathode, separator and electrolyte) come from these three countries.

Currently, about 50 kilotons of spent batteries are recycled annually in Europe. The quantity of batteries to be recycled will increase continuously in the coming years - and the origin of these batteries will also change.

In recent years, a large number of battery cell factories have been announced in Europe and the momentum is still not slowing down. Just recently, new plans by two Chinese cell manufacturers (CALB in Portugal and CATL in Hungary) have increased the total maximum cell production capacity announced in Europe - i.e. the total capacity of battery cells that would be produced if all the announced factories were built on the announced schedule and operated at maximum capacity - to up to 1.7 TWh by 2030.

The consumption of social media among the youth is widespread and can lead to the purchase of products advertised by influencers. The FAIR_V project studies the influence of social media influencers on adolescents, to come up with strategies to improve the resilience of adolescents to reduce mal-consumption.

The Fraunhofer Institutes ICT, IPA, ISI and the Fraunhofer research institution FFB have presented a study on the development of lithium-ion battery cell formats. It looks at the most important trends in battery chemistry, cell formats, cell production and safety and compares them with the requirements of various battery applications. Special attention is paid to the announcements of the automotive manufacturers, e.g. on large-format cells.

The global sales figures on the electric car market are clearly developing in one direction: upward. An analysis of the individual models and countries shows differences. In addition, a forecast for 2022 is already possible.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI launches its Battery Update: a new blog format in which scientists present core results from their current battery research. In addition, the blog serves as a platform where current topics around the battery supply chain are accompanied and discussed.

We would like to express our shock and bewilderment at the unjustifiable attack on Ukraine in violation of international law. In addition to the inconceivable suffering of the people in the affected region, this war also calls into question the stability and security of Europe that we have been accustomed too.

Estimating the macroeconomic effects of investments in public research and innovation is of central interest to policymakers, scientists and the general public alike. Many studies have attempted to provide quantifications of these returns, often finding substantial effects (Carree et al. 2014, Jones and Summers 2020, Comin 2021) in terms of GDP, employment, investment and tax revenues (Roy et al. 2021). Two very recent examples by Schubert (2021) and Allan et al. (2022) analyze the case of Fraunhofer as the biggest organization for applied research in Europe. One of the central findings of these studies was that increasing the Fraunhofer budget by one euro increases GDP by 21 euros.