Details on the three sins of lithium batteries and fuel cells

Batteries are like clothes, some look good, but they can't be worn; Some of them are not pretty, but they can be worn.

Lithium batteries in the battery market in the past 20 years, really is a big red. Small to digital products, smart bracelets, medium to new energy vehicles, large to energy storage power stations, nowhere to disappear. This is due to the fact that lithium batteries may be the only battery products with a combination of power and energy characteristics and mature technology.

For the origin of lithium batteries, I will not elaborate, but one point to mention, lithium batteries are absolutely a battery history miracle, is the best example of the market and technology positive synergy.

Among the batteries that can be produced on a large scale, the technical maturity of lithium batteries and lead-acid batteries is the highest for lithium batteries, and the industrial standardization is the strongest. In other words, batteries can be directly produced through direct procurement of production lines through capital. Although there is still a lot of room for improvement in the process, but now, lithium-ion batteries are undoubtedly the best choice for electric vehicles, but I think that is not the final choice.

The three sins of lithium-ion batteries: energy cap, difficulty in recycling, and safety hazards.

The energy density of lithium batteries is the most concerned issue in the market. The concern is because it is directly related to the range of electric vehicles. But it's hard to increase energy density, and I'm not going to dwell on that much.

Who is the future market for the three sins of lithium and fuel cells?

When it comes to recycling, I think it is the problem that needs to be faced and solved in the future. I have done research, we can find abandoned old dry batteries, cell phone batteries in the garbage can in the community, but we can never find the money to calculate the battery. It is well known that lead-acid batteries can be sold. This is because the lead-acid battery is at least 30 % residual after failure. However, lithium batteries are not, and the residual value is not high, which means that battery recovery may not be a market initiative. Then it becomes a realistic question who will pay the bill. If materials such as lithium cobalt phosphate are still profitable on paper in the recycling process, then lithium iron phosphate may need subsidies to be done. The low residual value brought about by low costs and the non-recyclability may be a double-edged sword brought about by the lithium iron phosphate technology. Perhaps sometimes, economic non-cyclicality is more serious than technical non-cyclicality.

Security hazards, people see benevolence, wisdom see wisdom. From my personal point of view, anyone who no longer discusses security at a systemic level is a hooligan. However, the reality is that power batteries require high capacity density and are quite sensitive to costs. As a product, it is a big investment in this direction. The manufacturers are not clever. It is better to directly tell people how high the mileage is or how low the price is. More cost-effective. The fuel truck is also such a dilemma, and the outstanding safety performance is not as good as the large space, appearance, brand hard, low fuel consumption, and large concessions. Because of the security problem, there will always be a certain probability that spending a lot of experience to do something customers may not feel, not necessarily every manufacturer will be willing. Like a camera, the most likely focus is on pixels. Although the high pixels do not mean that the quality of the picture must be good, it may be worse, but the market is very acceptable. Of course, manufacturers will do some safety tests, but even if they test 100 cases, there will be 101 cases. This is what we call an accident. Therefore, we can not spare no effort on the issue of safety. In the new energy vehicle technology is still immature today, there will always be security risks.

Lithium battery problem pool can not solve, if can solve, then lithium-ion battery does not exist.

Many people are working hard to solve the problem of lithium batteries, but in fact, I firmly believe: the problem of lithium batteries lithium batteries can not be solved.

In 2000, when I bought my first phone, I was very impressed. I used nickel-metal hydride batteries. It takes 18 hours for the first charge to be made, and it also requires electricity to be used to charge. So that by 2008, someone was still asking me, new notebook, with the first charge do not charge 12 hours?

If you use a noun to describe the above problem, then everyone knows that this is the "memory effect" of the battery. When 10 years ago, no memory effect was one of the main selling points of lithium batteries.

Some battery problems can be solved, such as the optimization of the process and the improvement of consistency. We can spare no effort to solve them through the "craftsman spirit", but some problems, such as energy density, are caused by lithium batteries from the gene. It is limited by the periodic law of the elements, so it is almost impossible to solve.

Lithium batteries exist because they solve the problems caused by the nickel-metal hydride battery gene, and the problems in the lithium battery gene also need other batteries to solve.

Fuel cells and liquid-flow cells are more suitable for new energy vehicles, at least in form.

In addition to the technical aspects of the car, charging seems to be a problem. Fuel cars, refueling can be done in about ten minutes, but new energy cars charge, but it takes a lot longer.

For this "inconvenience", there are no more than two solutions: fast charging and switching technology. There are many problems brought about by fast charging technology, which will increase the cost of charging stations, reduce the battery life, and increase the use of electric loads. Many articles have discussed. I want to talk about switching. From 2010 to now, although I am a stubborn person, there are many views have changed. However, I always hold a negative view on the power exchange technology.

First, the battery model is not uniform. When it comes to the unification of industrial standards, the first thing that comes to mind is the PC. But not in the automotive world. Tsella opened the patent, wondering if the goal was to become IBM in the electric car industry. However, the new energy car market is not the only one in Tesla. Battery groups, BMS, and thermal management have their own strengths, so unification is almost impossible.

This raises questions. This will mean that different manufacturers, and even different models of the same manufacturer, will have different batteries. This is equivalent to the fact that switching stations are not universal(gas stations are universal). So according to the service demand, different manufacturers, to do their own power plant.

Of course, there can also be a service company to complete a different brand of electric vehicle switch service. This will lead to another problem. According to the 100 degrees of electricity stored in a car, the battery volume of a bicycle is actually not small based on the energy density of a lithium battery. Therefore, this will be subject to multiple restrictions on the amount of daily service, storage space, and the charging capacity of the power station.

At the same time, there is also an implicit problem with the property rights of batteries. At this point, the battery's property rights can no longer belong to the owner. Because your battery will be replaced. This brings with it a range of issues such as subsequent warranty, maintenance and disposal. Therefore, it may mean that the power of the car must be separated.

If the car is separated, then it may be that because of the replacement to be considered, the ratio of batteries to cars will be greater than 1 to 1. This is because, for example, a car has a battery in use, and the battery to be replaced is also being charged and stored. If 10 cars use 11 batteries, it means that the cost of the battery will increase by another 10 %. In the market for new energy vehicles, the cost of batteries is generally high. If the cost of batteries is further increased at this time, then who will pay for it is a problem.

So, from 2010, when I first heard about switching technology, to today, my attitude toward switching technology has not changed: it is not impossible, but it is not a large-scale application.

At this point, the advantages of fuel cells and liquid-flow cells are obvious. By filling hydrogen or replacing electrolytes, the "charging" process can be completed. Hydrogen, like gasoline, is virtually indistinguishable as long as the purity is good and the pressure is up to standard. Even if there is a slight difference in the pressure between different models, it can be achieved through simple secondary decompression. Regardless of technological maturity, it is at least more formal.

The three sins of fuel cells: hydrogen industry chain, precious metal catalysis, and management difficulties.

It goes back to the beginning, fuel cells, like a beautiful dress, but not comfortable.

Since 2006, I have determined that the core issue of fuel cells is the hydrogen industry chain.

In the third industrial revolution of Mr. Jeremy Rifkin, the five pillars of energy are mentioned, and hydrogen energy is one of them. In the fuel cell technology of concern, I can't help but ask where hydrogen comes from. I have also used the technology of hydrogen production, but unfortunately, even if there is an industry, there is no industrial chain.

Oil dominates energy entirely thanks to the development of the oil industry chain. In addition to gasoline and diesel, which are familiar to us, there are many kinds of engineering materials, daily chemical products, are all petroleum as raw materials. The main products and various by-products separated by oil not only share the cost of raw materials, but also affect various industries.

For example, there are many wind farms built in the Northeast, but the output is not much, especially in the winter, or mainly thermal power. The simple reason is that thermal power plants have an important by-product: heat. If wind power is used, it will surely save energy and reduce emissions. The air in the Northeast winter will be much fresher, but heating will not solve it. This is what I understand the industrial chain. I don't know if it is different from the professional definition in economics. The so-called industrial chain is that in the production and use process, there are people responsible for it, whether it is use, recycling or secondary development.

Today, our dependence on oil is not just gasoline, although it is the largest. In turn, whether it is upstream hydrogen production companies or downstream hydrogen end users, there is no real connection. In the case of new energy vehicles that use fuel cells only, I don't think the chain will grow very fast. Because the supply and demand sides are too single, who will be the fuel cell car and who will build the hydrogen station, there will be a round of calls for compensation. It is difficult to generate positive synergies between markets and technology.

After the industrial chain, talk about the second sin: precious metal catalyst.

The use of precious metal catalysts in fuel cells is a cliché but one that can not be ignored. Because I think it's one of the ceilings that limits fuel cell development. Perhaps fuel cell experts will say that the cost of fuel cells is not a catalyst, I know that, but I still say that it is the ceiling of the fuel cell, and it is a defect in the gene.

In my opinion, there are two kinds of high-cost materials in the world. The first is insufficient industrialization, and the second is scarce resources. For its production, through scale and technological progress, it can greatly reduce costs, such as the most expensive bipolar plates for fuel cells. For the latter, after scale, it brings about an increase in costs. This is if the production of nickel-metal hydride batteries will affect the price of nickel-cobalt ore. Precious metal catalysts belong to the latter.

For ordinary people, platinum is a luxury, not a necessity. Industrially, it is also used for niche products such as electrodes and sensors. If platinum becomes a civilian product, huge demand will greatly increase its price. In other words, the future cost of fuel cells is immeasurable. Although some experts have vowed that Miria's listing has solved the problem of precious metal catalysts, although I have seen Toyota push the actual use of precious metal catalysts to a new low. While I admit that it is technically pretty bad, it may not be low enough if you want to use it on a large scale.

The third sin of fuel cells: I call it management difficulty.

Management difficulties are relative to lithium batteries. Fuel cells and liquid-flow batteries are all more complex than lithium lead-acid batteries at one Latitude. If I define lithium cells as two-dimensional management, that is, temperature fields and electric fields, then fuel cells are three-dimensional management, that is, electric fields, temperature fields, flow fields. Therefore, management is quite complicated.

Some people call the management of fuel cells water heat management, which is very reasonable. For example, it is known that the reaction of fuel cells is hydrogen and oxygen to produce water. This water is very knowledgeable. First, water is necessary for fuel cells because proton exchange membranes must work in a humid environment. The operating temperature of the fuel cell is 60 degrees Celsius, and the moisture in the membrane is difficult to maintain. It needs to be artificially humidified or supplemented with water generated by the reaction. The amount of water is difficult to control: If there is less water, the membrane will rapidly increase the resistance of the battery due to dehydration. If there is more water, the battery discharge ability will be rapidly reduced due to the "flooding" of the electrode. No more is good, no less is good. What's more, the output of the battery and the ambient temperature and humidity are also constantly changing. How to control the right amount in an electric reactor is extremely difficult. And so on, fuel cells have a lot of genetic management difficulties. Therefore, although fuel cells have only one latitude more control than lithium cells, they are several orders of magnitude more difficult to control.

There is no battery without problems; Nor is there a battery that can solve all problems. Finding your own application scenario, or even a combination of batteries, is king(Lao Zhang, a summit in 2014).

I rarely participate in the battle between iron lithium and three yuan in lithium electricity, because there is never a conclusion. People are defending business interests, not technology. It's like arguing about which school doctor is better than the attending doctor at the sanjia hospital. If it is strong, the attending physician will inevitably win, but the school doctor does not spend money, does not queue up, and can handle emergency or less urgent situations for the children of the school anytime, so the attending physician can never replace the school doctor, and vice versa.

This example actually illustrates the importance of the application scene. When I tell people that fuel cells are more suitable for new energy vehicles, it is often misinterpreted. I never think that lithium batteries are not suitable for new energy vehicles, but lithium batteries are not suitable for all new energy vehicles. In a niche market, it might be more appropriate, such as the low-speed electric car that is now being discussed.

Here, I would like to say a little more: Even today, those "eliminated" nickel-metal hydride batteries and lead-acid batteries of lithium batteries are still in the market for a large number of applications. Although there are weaknesses, but there will certainly be strengths, strengths and weaknesses, and market demand can be grinding. Therefore, there is no need to avoid the problem of lithium batteries. As long as they are developed in their own suitable application scenarios, there will be a large market.

Formally, fuel cells are more suitable for new energy vehicles. But technically, there are still many problems to be solved, and it is difficult to solve. Fuel cells are the oldest batteries and have a longer history than lead acid. A hundred years of unfinished business, if you want to complete in a few years, it really needs a lot of skills.

Science is the ceiling of technology. Only when science advances and the ceiling is moved up can technology develop. But science is not an invention, it is a discovery that requires preparation, luck and perseverance. If scientists do the work of engineers and the ceiling does not move, even if Qitian Dasheng's supernatural powers do not toss, they will not be able to jump out of the five fingers(this is a feeling, but also a complaint, see the official please ignore).

Finally, I would like to end with a quote from a professor in 2006: "Fuel cells must be hot, but it is not clear whether it is five or fifty years." If we really had to wait another 50 years for fuel cell technology, we might have waited another 40 years for the past 10 years.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.