Dragon Armor battery – new revolution of power battery
Table of Contents
China’s automobile electrification has entered a new stage in 2023. For power battery enterprises, whoever can provide batteries with higher quality, higher safety and higher performance will gain the dominant position in the future market.
Power battery optimization is moving towards the goal of extreme safety, extreme performance and lowest cost, among which the long thin square stacked battery is becoming the mainstream trend because of its great potential in safety, energy density, manufacturing efficiency and cost. As one of the long thin square stacked battery, Dragon Armor battery is bringing a new revolution to the lithium battery industry.
The release of Dragon Armor battery
On December 15th (Beijing Time), SVOLT Energy launched the third generation of CTP products named “Dragon Armor” on the 3rd Battery Day. April 18, 2023, just four months after that, Dragon Armor battery pack debuted at the Shanghai Auto Show.
What is a Dragon Armor battery
Dragon Armor battery
The name “Dragon Armor” is inspired by the legendary Armor of the Dragon clan, which means Dragon Armor battery is both strong and integrated, implying the battery’s indestructible safety.
The Dragon Armor battery is the first product to apply the thermoelectric separation design with a thermal runaway drain channel located at the bottom of the pack and an electrical connection area located on the side of the pack. When thermal runaway occurs in the cell, the high-temperature gas-liquid mixture will quickly exhaust along the exhaust channel through the shortest path, which perfectly solves the problem of thermal runaway.
Advantages of Dragon Armor battery
There are four advantages of Dragon Armor battery as below.
Ultimate performance
46 Series large cylindrical battery
Compared to the 46 Series large cylindrical battery, The Dragon Armor battery is designed to be able to use a variety of short blade cells, which can be adapted to a full range of charging scales and chemical systems.
The series of SVOLT’s short blade battery covers L300, L400, L500 to L600 series products, covering 1.6-4C all-domain charging scale, vehicles, energy storage, construction machinery, non-high-speed tram and other application scenarios, and from cobalt-free, ternary to all-domain chemical system.
The Dragon Armor battery (lithium Iron L6 stacked), for example, achieved a 10.9% increase in total pack power compared to the traditional lithium iron CTP (L2 wound, CTP 2.0 structure). However, the Dragon Armor battery has a higher safety due to thermoelectric separation.
L6 wafer long cot-free cell
Under the same 2C fast charge scheme, the capacity of Dragon Armor battery pack (nickel at high L3 voltage) is 5% higher than the 46 cylinder battery (high nickel).
In terms of the 4C quick-charge scheme, 46 Cylinders need to be cooled with side and top, but increasing the bottom cooling will affect the height of the cell by 5mm. While the Dragon Armor battery is cooled on both sides, without affecting the cell layout space.
Ultimate safety
At the auto show, SVOLT showed the Dragon Armor battery’s latest thermal test. In the thermal runaway test, the heat triggered the thermal runaway of the battery cell in the middle of the whole pack. However, no open flame was seen in the whole pack of Dragon Armor battery, and the single battery cell that was out of control did not spread to adjacent cells, truly achieving the ultimate safety of the power battery.
This is mainly due to the Dragon Armor battery’s advanced “thermoelectric separation” design. Currently, the industry leaders in thermoelectric separation technology mainly include Tesla and SVOLT.
Thermoelectric separation is seen as the way to the next generation of protection technology. Comprehensive consideration of thermal and electrical factors, through the independent differentiation of thermal runaway pressure relief area and power transmission area, greatly reduce the failure probability of internal high voltage arc, ignition, to achieve a real “no thermal runaway spread”.
Short blade cell
Based on the innovation of the second generation of the short blade battery, Dragon Armor battery has explosion-proof valves placed on the bottom, allowing rapid directional pressure relief in the event of thermal runaway of a cell. The spray can be quickly discharged in the specified direction through a short channel without spreading to the surrounding cells. At the same time, the Dragon Armor battery placed the cell connection on the side, achieving “thermoelectric separation” in the y-direction and Z-direction.
Dragon Armor battery provides single-sided cooling at the top and dual-sided cooling at the top and bottom to meet the requirements of different application scenarios. The dual-sided cooling solution enables the battery cell to contact the cooling plate over a large area, increasing the heat transfer capacity by 70% compared to the normal level, enhancing the safety of the battery pack in both quick-charge and non-charging scenarios.
Controllable cost
Until now, the high cost of square stacked cells has been a major problem in the industry due to the low efficiency of stacking devices.
This year, SVOLT officially introduced stacking technology 3.0 – “fly-stack” technology into the production line, in order to solve the problems faced by the industry with more efficient manufacturing process.
Fly-stack equipment
At the manufacturing end, fly-stack technology integrates polar wafer thermal recombination and multi-wafer fusion technology, and the stacking efficiency reaches 0.125 seconds per wafer, reducing the equipment footprint. Compared with traditional stacking route, the single wafer efficiency is improved by more than 200%, saving 53% of the investment per GWh, and saving more than 45% of the equipment unit footprint. Four flying stack equipment can produce 300,000-400,000 short blade cells a month, and can be flexibly adjusted according to customer needs.
Increasing the production yield rate is also an effective way to reduce the cost of power battery. The fly-stack technology completely eliminates the diaphragm fold and the hidden danger of powder loss of the pole sheet through the advance thermal recombination of the diaphragm and the pole sheet, and ensures the complete stability of the internal structure of the battery through the integration of the diaphragm and hot pressing. 100%AI visual detection of each pole sheet ensures zero internal defects, and solves the pain points of defect control and monitoring such as diaphragm fold and poor alignment in the industry. The production yield rate can reach more than 95%.
On the battery side, Dragon Armor battery’s highly integrated design reduced its size and weight through structural design innovations, resulting in a bunching rate of 76 percent, effectively reducing battery costs.
In terms of materials, the layered cobalt-free material independently developed by SVOLT has been mass-produced. The developed “high ferromanganese nickel” battery has a higher energy density than lithium iron phosphate, making the cost further controllable.
Ultimate compatibility
In the respect of compatibility, Dragon Armor battery’s short blade cell is based on a long and thin design. The stacking process enables excellent battery performance. The series and parallel scheme is flexible and supports switching between 590 standard modules, which better matches the CTC technology and minimizes difficulty of battery pack design.
The Dragon Armor battery is compatible with a variety of chemical systems and is available in the A00-D vehicles. The extreme compatibility shortens the research and development cycle of new models for vehicle enterprises, and the universality of battery packs also reduces the further procurement cost.
What need to be improved for Dragon Armor battery
Stacking production efficiency
In 2019, the first generation of SVOLT’s high-speed stacked cell could achieve the efficiency of 0.6s/piece. In 2020, the second generation has evolved to 0.45s/piece, and the third generation has achieved 0.125s/piece. Today, fly-stack technology is still being optimized, and a higher speed fourth generation is being developed to further improve efficiency.
Equipment line efficiency
Due to insufficient experience in the production process of long and thin battery cells within the industry, the efficiency of the equipment line cannot meet the demand. At present, a 16PPM equipment line is commonly used in the industry, and SVOLT is currently developing a 32PPM more efficient equipment line, which is expected to double production.
Injection efficiency
Long cell injection efficiency is also a bottleneck. SVOLT is developing new injection equipment, injection processes, and faster absorbing materials to reduce injection time.
Battery materials
In addition to the process, more cost-effective battery materials on the product side is also a very important to be improved, such as lithium manganese iron phosphate, which has a higher energy density than lithium iron phosphate, or high manganese iron nickel batteries, which do not contain cobalt and have controllable costs. Lithium iron phosphate, lithium manganese iron phosphate, ternary systems, etc. can all be used in Dragon Armor battery systems to further solve cost issues
Up to now, Dragon Armor battery can not only achieve full coverage of a range of 300-1000 kilometers, but also meet the 2C charging rate of the 400V platform for vehicles, as well as the dual sided cooling and super fast charging capacity of the 800V platform for 4C. Dragon Armor battery is one of the best choices to meet the safety, cost, and performance needs of car companies.
Dragon Armor battery – new revolution of power battery
Table of Contents
China’s automobile electrification has entered a new stage in 2023. For power battery enterprises, whoever can provide batteries with higher quality, higher safety and higher performance will gain the dominant position in the future market.
Power battery optimization is moving towards the goal of extreme safety, extreme performance and lowest cost, among which the long thin square stacked battery is becoming the mainstream trend because of its great potential in safety, energy density, manufacturing efficiency and cost. As one of the long thin square stacked battery, Dragon Armor battery is bringing a new revolution to the lithium battery industry.
The release of Dragon Armor battery
On December 15th (Beijing Time), SVOLT Energy launched the third generation of CTP products named “Dragon Armor” on the 3rd Battery Day. April 18, 2023, just four months after that, Dragon Armor battery pack debuted at the Shanghai Auto Show.
What is a Dragon Armor battery
The name “Dragon Armor” is inspired by the legendary Armor of the Dragon clan, which means Dragon Armor battery is both strong and integrated, implying the battery’s indestructible safety.
The Dragon Armor battery is the first product to apply the thermoelectric separation design with a thermal runaway drain channel located at the bottom of the pack and an electrical connection area located on the side of the pack. When thermal runaway occurs in the cell, the high-temperature gas-liquid mixture will quickly exhaust along the exhaust channel through the shortest path, which perfectly solves the problem of thermal runaway.
Advantages of Dragon Armor battery
There are four advantages of Dragon Armor battery as below.
Ultimate performance
Compared to the 46 Series large cylindrical battery, The Dragon Armor battery is designed to be able to use a variety of short blade cells, which can be adapted to a full range of charging scales and chemical systems.
The series of SVOLT’s short blade battery covers L300, L400, L500 to L600 series products, covering 1.6-4C all-domain charging scale, vehicles, energy storage, construction machinery, non-high-speed tram and other application scenarios, and from cobalt-free, ternary to all-domain chemical system.
The Dragon Armor battery (lithium Iron L6 stacked), for example, achieved a 10.9% increase in total pack power compared to the traditional lithium iron CTP (L2 wound, CTP 2.0 structure). However, the Dragon Armor battery has a higher safety due to thermoelectric separation.
Under the same 2C fast charge scheme, the capacity of Dragon Armor battery pack (nickel at high L3 voltage) is 5% higher than the 46 cylinder battery (high nickel).
In terms of the 4C quick-charge scheme, 46 Cylinders need to be cooled with side and top, but increasing the bottom cooling will affect the height of the cell by 5mm. While the Dragon Armor battery is cooled on both sides, without affecting the cell layout space.
Ultimate safety
At the auto show, SVOLT showed the Dragon Armor battery’s latest thermal test. In the thermal runaway test, the heat triggered the thermal runaway of the battery cell in the middle of the whole pack. However, no open flame was seen in the whole pack of Dragon Armor battery, and the single battery cell that was out of control did not spread to adjacent cells, truly achieving the ultimate safety of the power battery.
This is mainly due to the Dragon Armor battery’s advanced “thermoelectric separation” design. Currently, the industry leaders in thermoelectric separation technology mainly include Tesla and SVOLT.
Thermoelectric separation is seen as the way to the next generation of protection technology. Comprehensive consideration of thermal and electrical factors, through the independent differentiation of thermal runaway pressure relief area and power transmission area, greatly reduce the failure probability of internal high voltage arc, ignition, to achieve a real “no thermal runaway spread”.
Based on the innovation of the second generation of the short blade battery, Dragon Armor battery has explosion-proof valves placed on the bottom, allowing rapid directional pressure relief in the event of thermal runaway of a cell. The spray can be quickly discharged in the specified direction through a short channel without spreading to the surrounding cells. At the same time, the Dragon Armor battery placed the cell connection on the side, achieving “thermoelectric separation” in the y-direction and Z-direction.
Dragon Armor battery provides single-sided cooling at the top and dual-sided cooling at the top and bottom to meet the requirements of different application scenarios. The dual-sided cooling solution enables the battery cell to contact the cooling plate over a large area, increasing the heat transfer capacity by 70% compared to the normal level, enhancing the safety of the battery pack in both quick-charge and non-charging scenarios.
Controllable cost
Until now, the high cost of square stacked cells has been a major problem in the industry due to the low efficiency of stacking devices.
This year, SVOLT officially introduced stacking technology 3.0 – “fly-stack” technology into the production line, in order to solve the problems faced by the industry with more efficient manufacturing process.
At the manufacturing end, fly-stack technology integrates polar wafer thermal recombination and multi-wafer fusion technology, and the stacking efficiency reaches 0.125 seconds per wafer, reducing the equipment footprint. Compared with traditional stacking route, the single wafer efficiency is improved by more than 200%, saving 53% of the investment per GWh, and saving more than 45% of the equipment unit footprint. Four flying stack equipment can produce 300,000-400,000 short blade cells a month, and can be flexibly adjusted according to customer needs.
Increasing the production yield rate is also an effective way to reduce the cost of power battery. The fly-stack technology completely eliminates the diaphragm fold and the hidden danger of powder loss of the pole sheet through the advance thermal recombination of the diaphragm and the pole sheet, and ensures the complete stability of the internal structure of the battery through the integration of the diaphragm and hot pressing. 100%AI visual detection of each pole sheet ensures zero internal defects, and solves the pain points of defect control and monitoring such as diaphragm fold and poor alignment in the industry. The production yield rate can reach more than 95%.
On the battery side, Dragon Armor battery’s highly integrated design reduced its size and weight through structural design innovations, resulting in a bunching rate of 76 percent, effectively reducing battery costs.
In terms of materials, the layered cobalt-free material independently developed by SVOLT has been mass-produced. The developed “high ferromanganese nickel” battery has a higher energy density than lithium iron phosphate, making the cost further controllable.
Ultimate compatibility
In the respect of compatibility, Dragon Armor battery’s short blade cell is based on a long and thin design. The stacking process enables excellent battery performance. The series and parallel scheme is flexible and supports switching between 590 standard modules, which better matches the CTC technology and minimizes difficulty of battery pack design.
The Dragon Armor battery is compatible with a variety of chemical systems and is available in the A00-D vehicles. The extreme compatibility shortens the research and development cycle of new models for vehicle enterprises, and the universality of battery packs also reduces the further procurement cost.
What need to be improved for Dragon Armor battery
Stacking production efficiency
In 2019, the first generation of SVOLT’s high-speed stacked cell could achieve the efficiency of 0.6s/piece. In 2020, the second generation has evolved to 0.45s/piece, and the third generation has achieved 0.125s/piece. Today, fly-stack technology is still being optimized, and a higher speed fourth generation is being developed to further improve efficiency.
Equipment line efficiency
Due to insufficient experience in the production process of long and thin battery cells within the industry, the efficiency of the equipment line cannot meet the demand. At present, a 16PPM equipment line is commonly used in the industry, and SVOLT is currently developing a 32PPM more efficient equipment line, which is expected to double production.
Injection efficiency
Long cell injection efficiency is also a bottleneck. SVOLT is developing new injection equipment, injection processes, and faster absorbing materials to reduce injection time.
Battery materials
In addition to the process, more cost-effective battery materials on the product side is also a very important to be improved, such as lithium manganese iron phosphate, which has a higher energy density than lithium iron phosphate, or high manganese iron nickel batteries, which do not contain cobalt and have controllable costs. Lithium iron phosphate, lithium manganese iron phosphate, ternary systems, etc. can all be used in Dragon Armor battery systems to further solve cost issues
Up to now, Dragon Armor battery can not only achieve full coverage of a range of 300-1000 kilometers, but also meet the 2C charging rate of the 400V platform for vehicles, as well as the dual sided cooling and super fast charging capacity of the 800V platform for 4C. Dragon Armor battery is one of the best choices to meet the safety, cost, and performance needs of car companies.