A brief introduction to the new trend of 2018 power battery packaging development

In order to break through the "squeeze" of square battery and the technology accumulation and usage habit of cylindrical battery for more than 50 years, soft-pack battery needs to give full play to its advantages of safety and high density.

Soft-pack batteries have a bright future

According to statistics from qidian research institute (SPIR), in terms of the output of batteries of different shapes, the shipments of square cells in 2017 were the largest, but in terms of their year-on-year growth rate, the cylinder and soft package grew the fastest, reaching 57% and 26% respectively. However, qidian expects soft-pack batteries to be the fastest-growing segment of the market in 2018, with year-on-year growth of more than 35 percent. The output of soft-pack battery is expected to exceed 50Gwh in 2020.

The market prospect of soft-pack power battery is self-evident, including hyundai, ford, Volvo, Daimler and other international leading military car enterprises, as well as baic, saic, Shanghai gm, JMC holdings, Chongqing Changan and other domestic car enterprises have released a number of models supporting soft-pack power battery.

Flexible battery is very common in the field of consumer electronics, but it is still in the development stage in the field of power battery. However, at present, more than half of the top 50 battery factory layout of the soft pack line, recently many enterprises opened the expansion mode.

On the evening of May 30, Yiwei lithium energy announced that it would invest no more than 600 million yuan to set up a subsidiary company, Huizhou Yiwei Jineng, to engage in the related business of soft-pack batteries, in which the company holds 100% equity. The company is mainly engaged in the business related to automobile flexible package battery core, automobile flexible package battery module and energy storage battery, aiming at high-end new energy passenger car market.

Recently, Shanshan energy investment tens of millions of soft package battery line officially opened to the public. The designed capacity is 800 PCS/day, and 5-8 different formulas can be stirred to meet the rapid development of anode and cathode materials and chemical systems. Canel Shanghai, Nanchang, Liuzhou, Nanjing are expanding, is expected to end of the Sanyuan soft package production capacity will reach 6GWh.

However, the rise of soft-pack batteries, but also facing a strong "squeeze" of the square battery. For example, Ningde times and byd, both of which use square batteries, account for almost half of the market.

Wang hongmei, head of the energy systems department at zhidou technology integration center, said the 18650 requires strong thermal management because of its high internal resistance and severe heat. In addition, the safety of vehicles is difficult to guarantee, so the use of less and less. The current mainstream is the square and soft package. At present, the country has issued the recommended size standards for power batteries, large battery factories now basically produce cells in accordance with the standard size, there are several types of standard size cells have formed scale production, the basic trend of the market datong, the future of soft packs and square batteries will be in a certain period of time to coexist.

Energy density requirement power soft bag rise

Rise of soft bag, have its deep-seated reason. With the continuous improvement of energy density requirements, various manufacturers are trying to improve the parameters of their products, mainly along two half routes: one is to step up the research and development of positive materials with high specific energy, the other is to improve the capacity of battery monomer, reduce the proportion of shell and other auxiliary structures in the monomer. The other half, is to consider the transformation of soft-pack battery.

"Because of the soft package battery has the high temperature pressure process, internal resistance can be below 1 m Ω, spontaneous fewer calories, same charge long range by about 10% compared to other battery, cycle life of more than 500 to 1000." Our sales director MAO xiaofang said. Our mass produced soft pack battery, 260Wh/kg, 2000 times 100%DOD charge and discharge, the capacity attenuation is not more than 20%. 220Wh/kg cycles can be increased to over 3500 cycles.

In addition, the software package is also known in the industry as "no fire, no smoke battery." Because of the small internal resistance, the self-consumption of the battery is lower.

Soft-pack batteries also have the disadvantage of being easy to break down and require additional protection. Our flexible battery pack is assembled in a steel/aluminum case and can be tested by the 5S module, which is extremely strong and easy to assemble in the future.

Costs have always struggled to come down quickly

Fan yongjun, vice President of Chengdu yajun, said, because of the need for additional protection, the comprehensive cost of the soft package is high. The average cost of a battery pack of 1W will increase by 0.1 yuan, but this does not necessarily affect the choice of the car factory.

"Every car maker has its own preferences. Tesla excels in cylindrical batteries, BMW in square ones and the leaf and audi in soft packs." Yang zhengjie, vice President of Shanghai kanai new energy co., LTD. 's system technology research institute, said soft-pack battery to further breakthrough, must be in the production process, production capacity and cost and many other aspects.

According to the reporter understands, the development of soft pack battery also comes ten years, maturity nature cannot be compared with the cylindrical battery that developed 50 many years. The complete set of automatic equipment has not kept up, many battery factories still adopt a semi-artificial, semi-machine approach, the efficiency is difficult to improve, yield is not able to match the cylindrical battery.

"The equipment cost of soft-pack batteries is 20-30 percent higher, and the manufacturing cost is 5-10 percent higher." MAO xiaofang says in material cost certain circumstance falls quickly very hard price.

As a matter of fact, LG chem has always been the benchmark for domestic soft-pack power battery enterprises and the leading soft-pack battery enterprise recognized at home and abroad. However, due to the "white list" has never been able to enter the Chinese market on a large scale. Recently, the China association of automobile manufacturers (caam) jointly announced the white list of automobile power battery and hydrogen fuel cell industry (the first batch), adding Samsung Huanxin (xi 'an) power battery co., LTD., Nanjing lejin chemical new energy battery co., LTD., and Beijing electric control aisikai technology co., LTD. LG chemical has also been making moves recently. The entry of international battery enterprises will drive the rapid development of domestic soft-pack battery enterprises.

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