Is there any room for development in nickel-metal hydride batteries?

Recently, Toyota said that its upcoming hybrid version of the Prius Prime will use lithium batteries. Previously, Toyota announced that it would abandon the use of nickel-metal hydride batteries for most of its hybrid models these news have further confirmed that Toyota, which had previously adhered to the nickel-hydrogen route in the hybrid field, has indeed changed its battery technology route and has invested in the development and application of lithium battery technology.

Compared with lithium batteries, the energy density of nickel-metal hydride batteries is not dominant. Take the nickel-hydrogen battery powered by Toyota's third-generation Prius in 2012. This Ni-MH battery has a capacity of only 1.3kWh, a weight of 53.3kg, and an energy density of only 24.4Wh/kg less than 10 kilometers of pure electric driving. The lithium battery used in the general-purpose VOLT hybrid vehicle introduced by GM at the same time has a battery capacity of 16 kWh, a weight of 181.4 kg, and an energy density of 88.2 Wh/kg. The energy density of the two is nearly four times different.

Therefore, if Toyota continues to use nickel-metal hydride batteries, its products can only stay in the moderate hybrid stage, achieving the purpose of reducing fuel consumption in the short term. However, as far as the current global energy development situation is concerned, energy conservation and emission reduction are the goals of all countries in the world. Pure electric vehicles are one of the mainstream development directions of future automobiles. Toyota wants to get involved in the field of pure electric vehicles, and needs to abandon nickel-hydrogen batteries. The route uses a lithium battery with a smaller size, lighter weight and longer endurance, but this does not mean that nickel-metal hydride batteries are already dead end on the road of new energy vehicles. Nickel-metal hydride batteries have high safety, high power charge and discharge, wide temperature range, environmental friendliness and other technologies, and many companies have made nickel-hydrogen battery as a key production and research project.

After five years of research and development, Zibo Guoli New Power Technology Co., Ltd. pioneered a capacitive Ni-MH power battery. Through the innovation of process and equipment, this capacitive Ni-MH battery combines hydrogen storage alloy and carbon in an asymmetric way. It has five performance characteristics: “safe, cold resistant, fast charging, long life and environmentally friendly”. Experiments show that a pure electric passenger vehicle equipped with a 135Ah capacitive Ni-MH power battery can be placed for 20 hours in the environment of minus 36 ° C to minus 25 ° C, and can travel 100 km after one charge. This capacitive Ni-MH battery charges extremely fast, and can be fully charged in about 1.5 hours of slow charging. Fast charging for 10 minutes can ensure that the vehicle travels for more than 50 kilometers. At present, more than 100 pure electric buses in Zibo City, Shandong Province are equipped with this power battery, and some pure electric buses have successfully operated for one million kilometers.

Not long ago, Extreme Power Technology (Tianjin) Co., Ltd. also developed a nickel-hydrogen battery. Although this nickel-hydrogen battery has not yet achieved breakthrough in energy density, it is superior to lithium battery in terms of safety and charging capacity. According to reports, this Ni-MH battery can be charged for 3-5 minutes at normal temperature, and it takes only 6-10 minutes to charge at 40-60 °C.

Ni-MH batteries are the only proven, commercialized and scalable battery systems in hybrid systems used in hybrid vehicles, and they have a large share of the hybrid market. Because it is superior to traditional fuel vehicles in terms of environmental friendliness, the hybrid vehicle industry has become one of the strategic emerging industries that the country has focused on. However, due to the high price of nickel-metal hydride batteries, hybrid vehicles using nickel-hydrogen batteries have a much higher price than conventional fuel vehicles. Therefore, only by reducing the cost of batteries and vehicles can market advantages be obtained.

On November 8, Keliyuan Automobile power battery Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Kelimei), which was jointly established by Keliyuan and Toyota, was officially put into operation in Changshu, Jiangsu. The nickel-hydrogen power battery produced by Kelimei is mainly used for hybrid vehicles equipped with brands such as FAW Toyota and GAC Toyota. After the project is put into production, it can produce 110,000 sets of nickel-hydrogen batteries every year. The current annual output is close to 100,000 sets. The large-scale production of Kelimei Ni-MH battery will help reduce the overall vehicle cost of domestic Ni-MH hybrid vehicles and increase the market share of such vehicles.

Wintech's first nickel-hydrogen battery complete line automation equipment was officially launched in the Huizhou Industrial Park last month. It is understood that this is the first domestic nickel-hydrogen battery complete line automation equipment to promote China's nickel-hydrogen battery. Industrial development plays an active role in improving the quality of domestic products.

In addition, Penghui Energy, Times Wanheng, Chunlan, Xiamen Tungsten, Antai Technology, and Zhongju High-tech also invested a lot of energy in the production and research and development of nickel-metal hydride batteries.

Nickel-metal hydride battery is a new type of green battery developed in the 1990s. Under the impetus of the 863 program "Ni-MH battery industrialization" project, China's nickel-hydrogen battery industry has gradually developed. Battery China Network believes that in the field of nickel-hydrogen batteries, China has the advantage of rare earth resources and is becoming more mature in technology. In supporting the development of the new energy automobile industry, the country also regards nickel-hydrogen battery as a key support target, and the nickel-hydrogen battery industry is in a green development stage. Like lithium batteries, nickel-hydrogen batteries, as secondary batteries, still have great potential for development in the field of clean energy such as new energy vehicles and energy storage.

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