Yousi Technology Expands Application of Graphene-Based Secondary Battery to Drone Sector

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyungsoo Park] Graphene-based secondary battery specialist ENPLUS and energy specialist USYTECHNOLOGY are jointly developing a graphene-based ‘supercapacitor’ secondary battery, expanding its application range to drones.

USYTECHNOLOGY announced on the 18th that it signed an industry-academia-research cooperation agreement with Sekyung University to expand the application of graphene supercapacitors to the drone industry by developing secondary batteries for manned drones. It also signed a business agreement with ‘Drone School International,’ Korea’s first drone-specialized educational institution developing firefighting drones, aiming to develop secondary batteries for drones.

Through this agreement, the graphene supercapacitor jointly developed with ENPLUS will be designed in an optimized form for both manned and unmanned drones. Last December, they succeeded in developing a graphene supercapacitor for electric vehicles (EV) and conducted tests on a 72V EV.

Currently, most drones use lithium polymer secondary batteries. Lithium polymer batteries are vulnerable to temperature, have a short lifespan, and low charge-discharge efficiency. Unlike lithium-based secondary batteries, graphene supercapacitors have no restrictions due to temperature or environment and exhibit excellent charge-discharge efficiency.

Drone flight time can be dramatically increased while charging time can be shortened. Using a dedicated charger, a battery with a capacity of 16,000mA can be charged within 30 minutes. Since it can be used semi-permanently, it also reduces the cost of repeatedly purchasing secondary batteries.

In test flights conducted jointly with Drone School International, drones equipped with supercapacitors recorded a flight time of 42 minutes even in subzero weather. This is more than twice the flight time of drones equipped with lithium polymer batteries of the same capacity.

A USYTECHNOLOGY official said, "With this agreement, when developing graphene supercapacitor secondary batteries optimized for drones in the future, flights of around one hour are expected to be possible," adding, "This means that the commercialization of manned drones capable of long-duration flights is not far off."

Cho Hyunjun, CEO of Drone School International, explained, "Even a 30% increase in drone flight time can significantly enhance drone usability," and added, "Increasing flight time is a prerequisite that must be improved for drones to be applied in various fields in the future."

ENPLUS plans to accelerate the lightweighting of drone and mobility parts by applying graphene to various composite materials beyond secondary batteries. The company explained that through joint core technology development with the Gyeongbuk IT Convergence Industry Technology Institute, successful commercialization of domestically produced manned and unmanned drones could lead Korea to become one of the ‘Top 7 Drone Powers.’

An ENPLUS official said, "Starting with drones, we will widely apply supercapacitors to products using motors," and added, "USYTECHNOLOGY possesses CMS technology that modularizes graphene supercapacitor cells to be used as secondary batteries."