What crisis and opportunity does lithium power encounter?

Recently, a team of senior U. S. officials visited China to negotiate with China over the recent trade war. As a result of the China-US economic and trade consultation, the two sides have reached some consensus in some areas, but there are still considerable differences on some issues. Clearly, a trade war initiated by the United States against "Made in China 2025" will not stop there. However, in this trade war, the "ZTE incident" triggered an earthquake in the industry, and the United States then pointed its finger at Huawei ... ZTE was banned and other incidents exposed the shortcomings of China's manufacturing industry's lack of core technology and touched the nerves of the Chinese people.

Since the development of new energy vehicles in China ushered in the outbreak, as the core parts of the power lithium batteries also ushered in the "high light moment."

Once upon a time, Chinese companies accounted for seven of the top 10 global battery sales. Today, China has the largest number of power battery companies in the world. Statistics show that at present, China's power battery companies have exceeded 200. China is expected to account for more than 70 per cent of the global battery market by 2020, according to Forbes News.

In addition, the development of the dynamic lithium electricity industry has led to the rise of related companies in the upper and lower reaches of the industrial chain. The large and perfect power battery industry chain has been formed in China. But it is not strong enough. Some of the key core equipment and technology are still abroad, and there is a risk that core equipment and technology will be cut off.

The diaphragm is a short plate of lithium electrical material.

In lithium-ion battery materials, with the rise of positive and negative material manufacturers such as tianqi lithium industry, ganfeng lithium industry, and fir shares, as well as electrolytic liquid companies such as Tianjin Taurus and Tianjin materials, China's positive and negative materials and electrolytes have completed the process of localization. The diaphragm preparation of lithium is the weak link of power battery industry in China.

It is well known that the diaphragm is one of the four key components of lithium batteries. Therefore, the quality of the diaphragm will directly affect the capacity, life and safety of the power lithium-ion battery. The better the quality, the better the performance of the diaphragm, the better the comprehensive performance of the battery.

In recent years, the localization rate of lithium battery diaphragm in China has been constantly improving, but after all, it has started late, and domestic companies have low technological maturity. They mainly occupy the low-end 3C battery diaphragm market, and the localization rate of high-end diaphragm is still very low. High-end 3C batteries and power cell diaphragm are still heavily dependent on imports.

It is estimated that, by 2020, hundreds of millions of square metres of diaphragm material(in square metres) will be required annually in our country for motor batteries. However, the main problem in the diaphragm preparation process in China is the lack of consistency. The main features are irregular defects, substandard porosity, uneven thickness, pore distribution and aperture distribution. In addition, the PE diaphragm porosity is usually lower than that of foreign products, and the aperture distribution is not ideal. The existence of these problems has caused the diaphragm in China. If it is not solved properly, it may curb the healthy development of the dynamic lithium electric industry in China.

Although it is not as complicated as chip manufacturing, high-end diaphragm technology has a very high threshold. Not only does it have to invest huge sums of money, but it also requires a strong R&D and production team, sophisticated process technology, and high-level production lines. It can not be broken in a short time. The Sino-U.S. trade war and ZTE Huawei incident have sounded the alarm bell for China's manufacturing industry. For the entire power battery industry, it is urgent to break through the high-end diaphragm technology of lithium batteries as soon as possible.

Poor consistency in manufacturing process of lithium battery core

The manufacturing process of power cells is complicated. The main parts of the core manufacturing include: preparation of positive and negative plasma, coating of slurry, positive and negative roller pressure, positive and negative production, and battery assembly. Each process will affect the performance of power cells..

The development of lithium electricity in China today is still not perfect in the process of lithium electricity manufacturing. The big problem for power cell manufacturers is that it is difficult to achieve a high degree of consistency by fine-tuning the details of each process. For example, in the process of preparation of positive and negative slurry, if there is a problem of poor consistency of raw materials and inaccurate material ratio and solid liquid ratio, the active material, conductive agent, and binder can not be fully mixed and distributed evenly; Different environment and mixing process, mixing speed, mixing temperature, mixing time will affect the dispersion of the slurry. Moreover, even if these conditions are strictly controlled, under the current equipment process conditions, the mechanical properties of the fluid are difficult to maintain consistency.

Crisis and opportunity go hand in hand. Just as the lack of the fact of the core was put forward, the domestic importance of chip manufacturing has reached its highest level in history. Therefore, despite the current problem of poor manufacturing process consistency, through the development of a large-scale intelligent manufacturing roadmap for power batteries, including the establishment of research on battery manufacturing processes, manufacturing methods, and manufacturing equipment; Establish power battery manufacturing standards and equipment standards; Supporting semi-solid, solid, and lithium sulfur battery processes and equipment to study these methods and methods may be better.

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