New materials add momentum to the development of the lithium battery industry

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Lithium Battery Industry Standard Conditions" (draft for comments), covering industrial layout and project establishment, production scale and process technology, product quality, comprehensive utilization of resources and environmental protection, safety management, health and social responsibility, supervision and management.

In recent years, the development of new energy vehicles has received widespread attention. Affected by this, lithium batteries, which are the source of new energy vehicles, are also welcoming development opportunities, and capital has been involved. However, China's lithium battery industry is facing the dilemma of high-end products and overcapacity of low-end products, while some enterprises are in short supply. Other companies have lost money due to overcapacity, and the market has homogenization and low-price competition. At the same time, the battery's endurance and other performances are often criticized by consumers. The industry believes that the release of the draft for comment is conducive to the accelerated transformation and upgrading of the lithium battery industry and the survival of the fittest.

While the state has introduced policies to regulate the development of the lithium battery industry, many companies are also actively experimenting with new materials and technology research to improve the performance of lithium batteries. The lithium battery industry is expected to further improve its business climate.

Demand for lithium batteries is favored by capital

In recent years, the state has introduced a series of policies to promote the rapid development of new energy vehicles. The Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the National Development and Reform Commission released two lists of cities and groups for the promotion and application of new energy vehicles in November 2013 and January 2014, respectively, with a total of 88 cities in 39 cities (groups) listed in the new energy vehicle promotion and application cities (groups). At the same time, the state has also followed up the introduction of new energy vehicle subsidy policies, and local governments have also introduced subsidy programs to accelerate the promotion and application of new energy vehicles.

The favorable policies and the growth of terminal demand have triggered the rapid development of the upstream power lithium battery industry. Since the beginning of this year, the lithium battery industry has shown an explosive growth trend. China’s battery network CEO Qingjiao Yu revealed that in the first half of 2014, the total output value of China’s lithium battery industry was close to 40 billion Yuan. In the second half of the year, domestic lithium battery and key material output continued to grow steadily and high, and the annual total output value of the industry is expected to exceed 90 billion Yuan. Last year, the figure was 50 billion Yuan.

The rapid development of the lithium battery market has attracted more and more companies to enter this field, and the number of enterprises has increased from 10 in 2008 to more than 100 today. This trend has become more apparent this year. For example, Xinke Materials invested RMB 120 million in Tianjin Lishen and entered the lithium battery industry; ChangYuan Group announced on November 5 that it will spend 720 million Yuan to acquire an 80% stake in Jiangsu Huasheng Jinggong Co., Ltd., a lithium battery material company; Guangdong Mengshi Power Technology Co., Ltd. announced on December 4 that the company plans to invest 500 million Yuan to invest in the construction of lithium battery production project in the northern area of Jindu Industrial Park, Chun'an County, Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province.

Not only that, China's fast-growing demand for lithium batteries has also attracted the attention of foreign giants, such as South Korea's Samsung SDI is preparing to invest 600 million US dollars in Xi'an to build China's largest power battery base, South Korea's LG Chem to establish a new energy vehicle lithium battery factory in Nanjing.

Polarization and obvious policy adjustment

Although the overall performance of the lithium battery industry is eye-catching, but specific to the enterprise, it is "two days of ice and fire." While some lithium battery companies are in short supply, others are facing the dilemma of overcapacity.

Junyi Zhang, executive director of Roland Berger Automotive Industry, said that since China launched a vigorous development of environmental protection industry in 2008, many domestic investors and enterprises have started to invest in lithium batteries, and because of the high technical requirements for production of lithium batteries, few companies really Mastering the core technology of lithium batteries, resulting in a shortage of high-end products in the lithium battery industry and overcapacity of low-end products.

At present, this situation has not been significantly improved, so the status quo of the lithium battery industry "two hot days" is not difficult to explain.

According to the "Lithium Battery Industry Standard Conditions" (Draft for Comment), the "Lithium Battery Industry Standards and Conditions Preparation Instructions" pointed out that at present most of China's lithium battery enterprises are in the middle and low end of the market, many enterprises lack core technology and overall automation. The level is low, the homogenization vicious competition is serious, some enterprises are seriously under employed, and many enterprises are in a state of loss. Moreover, due to the serious excess of low-end production capacity, some enterprises face problems such as tight capital, rising debt ratio, increased inventory, and falling gross profit margin. If the industry further expands disorderly, it will seriously affect the industry development order.

To this end, the Exposure Draft proposes to strictly control the new lithium battery industry project that simply expands production capacity and has low technical level. At the same time, in order to avoid problems such as the company simply pursuing the scale of production capacity and ignoring the market, it is required to achieve certain targets in terms of capacity utilization. The overall goal is to urge enterprises to pay attention to overall planning, objectively analyze the market situation, not to be too greedy, to ensure the rational use of design and construction capacity, and to avoid waste of resources.

New materials "resolved" life mileage troubles

Although the state and local governments have introduced a number of favorable policies to accelerate the promotion and application of new energy vehicles, due to the short battery life of lithium batteries, most consumers still hold a wait-and-see attitude toward new energy vehicles. This has become the primary technical issue affecting the development of new energy vehicles, and it is also a hurdle that has to be faced.

To this end, some companies began to study the application of new materials to improve the battery life.

At present, the power battery positive materials used in electric vehicles mainly include lithium iron phosphate and ternary materials. BYD is developing a battery with higher energy density by improving the lithium iron phosphate component by adding manganese to the positive electrode material. The new battery has an energy density of 150watt-hours/kg, which is about 40% better than lithium iron phosphate battery performance. It is expected that this battery will be used in some electric vehicles of BYD next year.

In addition to manganese, graphene is also a "good hand" to improve the performance of lithium batteries. Experts say that the application of graphene to lithium batteries can solve the problem that the energy density and power density of traditional lithium batteries are difficult to combine, and graphene can be applied to lithium batteries in many aspects, such as graphene composite anode materials, such as silicon carbon. The composite anode material can also be used as a conductive additive for the positive and negative materials of the lithium battery, and can also be coated on the aluminum foil current collector to form a graphene functional coating aluminum foil. It is reported that Tesla is currently using graphene to develop high-performance lithium batteries.

In recent years, many companies in China have also conducted research in this area and have made positive progress. Feng Xiao, general manager of Ningbo Aineng Lithium Battery Technology Co., Ltd., said that by adding graphene, the conductivity of the lithium battery can be greatly improved, thereby reducing the amount of conductive agent added to the battery and helping to increase the battery capacity. The company's leading product power battery key material - lithium iron phosphate / graphene composite cathode material, the first phase of the design annual production capacity of 1,000 tons, after the completion of the second phase will reach 3,000 tons of production capacity.

However, on the whole, there are not many practical cases of applying graphene to lithium batteries in China. As the reason, Zhaoping Liu, general manager of Ningbo Moxi Technology Co., Ltd. and researcher of Ningbo Institute of Materials, Chinese Academy of Sciences believes that the cost performance problem of graphene is the biggest concern of graphene downstream application enterprises. “In fact, from the research results of Ningbo Moxi Technology and peers, the cost performance of graphene is very high. Adding a small amount of graphene material to the lithium battery can significantly improve its performance. With the gradual increase in the acceptance of the terminal market, it is believed that graphene materials will have a broader application prospect in the field of lithium batteries in the future."

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