Under the double incentive of policy and market, the material innovation and new technology application of power lithium battery began to be active, and entered the state of "competition among all flowers". However, experts believe that the breakthrough of power lithium battery technology will not be achieved overnight, and a variety of technological routes should be developed simultaneously.
Technological innovation is creeping up
Since the beginning of 2021, material innovation and new technology application of power lithium battery have become active. CATL reportedly launched its sodium-ion battery on July 29.
At the end of May this year, CATL Chairman Zeng Yuqun revealed the development trend of the sodium-ion battery at the shareholders' meeting. Now, the new technology has finally been unveiled.
The sodium-ion battery concept was first proposed in the 1970s, but it is still in the early stages of industrialization. Compared with lithium battery, sodium ion battery has three advantages: first, sodium ion resource is rich and evenly distributed; Second, the price of sodium compounds is stable and low; Third, the electrochemical performance of sodium ion battery is relatively stable and more safe.
Previously, Great Wall Motor's Honeycomb Energy announced on July 16 that its first cobalt-free battery was in mass production and will be used in the Great Wall Euler Cherry Cat model.
According to Honeycomb Energy, the mass-produced cobalt-free battery has an energy density of 240 watt-hours/kg and a capacity of 115Ah-Meb. The battery cycle life is longer than other high-nickel ternary batteries, and it can easily pass the heat chamber test at 150℃ and the overcharge test at 140 percent SOC. Taken together, the battery has the core advantages of high safety, high energy density, low cost and high cycle life.
Honeycomb Energy plans to mass-produce cobalt-free batteries by the end of 2021, according to officials.
In fact, with the development of the new energy vehicle industry, the innovation of power lithium battery in terms of materials and structure is also constantly advancing.
In early January this year, Guoxuan High-tech, GAC Aeon, NiO And Zhiji Motors have announced the use of silicon doped lithium technology in the battery end of the silicon anode material. Through this technology, the energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries has been significantly increased, enabling vehicles with related batteries to achieve an ultra-long range of 1,000 km.
It is understood that NiO and Zhiji vehicles equipped with this new material and technology powered lithium battery models will be launched next year, and GAC Aeon plans to launch related models in the second half of this year.
Nio's 150-watt-hour solid-state battery, introduced earlier this year, has made waves in the industry.
As we all know, once the liquid lithium battery is squeezed and punctured, it will cause the rupture of the diaphragm, resulting in a short circuit of the positive and negative poles, which will cause the battery to catch fire or even explode. There is also a ceiling on the energy density of liquid lithium batteries.
Because of their safety and high energy density, solid-state batteries are being touted as the next generation of lithium-ion batteries.
Safety is a top priority
Whether it is sodium-ion batteries, cobalt-free batteries or solid-state batteries, the industry believes that in addition to increasing battery life, another major task of power lithium battery innovation is to improve their safety.
Recently, the State Administration for Market Regulation defective Product Management Center announced the first half of the auto recall data. A total of 1.2838 million defective new energy vehicles were recalled in China in the first half of 2021, accounting for about 33 percent of the total defective vehicles, with lithium batteries being the most important reason for new energy vehicles being recalled, according to the survey.
Data show that from January to July this year, there were seven car companies that recalled 56,399 defective new energy vehicles because of problems with lithium batteries.
Among them, the most recalled car company is BaiC New Energy. On March 23 this year, BAIC New Energy decided to recall a total of 31,963 EX360 and EU400 pure electric vehicles produced from November 1, 2016 to December 21, 2018, starting from March 24, 2021, due to consistency differences in the power lithium battery system of some vehicles, which can easily lead to battery fire.
And the most eye-catching is undoubtedly Great Wall motor and Chery recall incidents. On July 16, Great Wall Motor and Chery Voluntarily recalled 17,623 new-energy vehicles due to the risk of lithium-ion batteries overheating out of control.
The industry believes that new energy vehicles are entering the fast lane of large-scale marketization. At this time point, the safety of power lithium batteries may become an "untimely bomb" in the process of vehicle electrification. Therefore, safety technology is not only the first focus of the revolutionary breakthrough of power lithium battery technology, but also the lifeline of sustainable development of electric vehicles.
Around the breakthrough of safety technology, many power lithium battery companies began to race against time.
On September 29 last year, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, revealed at the 2020 World New Energy Vehicle Conference that CATL has developed battery products that only smoke without fire and will be mass-produced in some models by the end of the year.
Following CATL, On December 2 of that year, Honeycomb Energy introduced a systematic solution to keep power lithium batteries from catching fire -- cold Bee. Honeycomb Energy said that the cold bee method can completely solve the thermal runaway problem of power lithium batteries by using original technology at four levels: material, cell, battery pack and monitoring system.
Gac Aeon announced its "magazine battery" system safety technology on March 10 this year, and claimed that the technology has broken through the "needle test" bottleneck, which has the most stringent safety requirements for ternary lithium batteries.
It is understood that GAC Aeon's "magazine battery" technology is neither a pure structural optimization nor a simple addition of heat insulation, but a set of safety technologies from intrinsic safety of battery cells to passive safety enhancement and software active prevention and control.
The industry believes that the safety of power lithium battery is a systematic problem, which not only involves material research, but also is closely related to technical application and structural optimization. Therefore, to achieve battery safety, all aspects of joint efforts. At the same time, under the premise of ensuring security, a variety of technical routes should be developed synchronously.
We will both encourage diversified innovation
High cost, insufficient energy density, low maintenance rate, slow charging, spontaneous combustion risk... From the point of view of components, all slots of current pure electric vehicles are derived from power lithium batteries.
In order to promote the research and industrialization of new power such as electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries for vehicles, China has published a number of relevant policies and plans since 2004. "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)" clearly put forward, to implement battery technology breakthrough action; Promote the development of the whole value chain of power lithium battery, and build a high-efficiency recycling system of power lithium battery; We will accelerate legislation on the recycling and utilization of power lithium batteries. According to the "Action Method to Promote the Development of Automotive Power Lithium Battery Industry", by 2025, the new system power lithium battery technology strives to achieve breakthrough, single specific energy of 500 watt-hours/kg.
Under the double incentive of policy and market, power lithium battery company is continuously increasing the investment of r&d expenses.
Data show that by the end of 2020, a-share listed companies with the concept of lithium battery A total of 75, and through the statistics of the above companies in the past three years of r&d investment sum found that the value is rising rapidly: 19.456 billion yuan in 2018, to 23.603 billion yuan in 2019, the figure of 28.64 billion yuan in 2020.
At the same time, the ratio of r&d investment in 75 A-share lithium battery concept companies to their revenues is also increasing year by year: from 4.56% in 2018 and 4.97% in 2019 to 5.16% in 2020.
In fact, it is the power lithium battery company in the research and development of the layout and investment, continue to promote the development of power lithium battery technology and technology innovation, so that the industry into the "flower competition show" state.
In recent years, a number of domestic battery companies in the battery structure, process, material and other dimensions, took the lead in putting forward a number of "innovative concepts", some of the innovative technologies or means have been put into practical application. For example, CATL announced CTP technology in 2019, and BYD launched blade battery technology in 2020.
In addition, Feunergy is also actively reserving the next generation of power lithium battery technology. Its semi-solid/solid-state cell and process development process is advancing rapidly, and semi-solid gel battery has entered the stage of commercialization.
However, at present, power lithium battery manufacturing is still a high threshold industry: on the one hand, it has the characteristics of electrochemistry as the core, interdisciplinary, the company to carry out systematic research; On the other hand, due to the complex production process and strict process control, the selection of raw materials, the application of auxiliary materials, as well as the setting of the production process, etc., require the company to have years of technical experience accumulation. At the same time, the power lithium battery company not only needs to "dig", optimize and balance energy density, safety, quick charging performance, service life and other dimensions under various existing technology routes such as lithium iron phosphate and terpolymer, but also takes into account the possible battery technology direction of the next generation and arranges in advance.
Because of this, market participants believe that power lithium battery technology breakthrough will not happen overnight, we should not only strengthen the battery material aspects such as basic research, clear the company in the dominant position of technical route choice, also want to improve the power lithium battery business, and big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other new technology, Through the new intelligent manufacturing technology to improve the performance of battery products, and accelerate the intelligent power lithium battery.