Sabancı University Nanotechnology Research and Application Center (SUNUM) is home to manufacturing of borophene, which is a substance made from boron. Manufactured by only a few countries in the world, borophene can now be manufactured at SUNUM.
As the world has become more and more digitalized, long-life batteries are needed to respond to usage needs of electronic devices with the state-of-the-art technology. Therefore, one of the hottest topics in the world’s science agenda is to manufacture batteries that can be rapidly recharged and come with a longer battery life. At this point, the world of science points to borophene as a potential solution. Referred to as a super-material, borophene is manufactured in only a few countries including Turkey.
Mert Umut Özkaynak, SUNUM’s Vice Director in charge of Strategy and Business Development, said the following about the borophene that they manufactured at the laboratory: “Being one of the most precious elements that Turkey has, boron is extremely important. With SUNUM researchers, we thought of a product that we could manufacture by using boron to make an impression on the world markets and we decided to manufacture borophene”.
Pointing out that by 2025, market size of power batteries will reach 106 billion USD, Özkaynak continued: “From this market, we want to grab our share with borophene technologies and decrease Turkey’s foreign dependence in this field. As we advanced our studies, we added different fields such as defense, automotive, composites to the field of energy and we diversified the product”.
Özgür Ekin Felek, SUNUM’s Business Development Specialist highlighted that regarding borophene manufacturing, it was very considerable that Turkey stood at the same level as other countries leading such an important technology.
Özgür Ekin Felek said the following: “We have observed that when we add 3% of borophene into a standard graphite-based battery system, specific capacity increases by 20 to 30%, and that when we add 10% of borophene to a supercapacitor, specific capacity increases by up to 75%. In addition, borophene considerably shortens recharging time while extending discharging time”.