At the end of 2023, the composite current collector has completed the introduction from the verification period to the mass production period as a whole in the ebb and flow of market heat, but there is still room for optimization in the commercialization process.
On the one hand, the technical route of composite current collector is still in full bloom and a hundred schools of thought are contending, and various companies from the equipment end to the material end are still in the process of exploring
On the other hand, structural overcapacity has led to a decrease in the material end, and cost has become an important consideration dimension for the application of new materials, which is also one of the constraints on the marketization of composite current collectors.
Under the new cycle of the lithium battery industry, where will the composite current collector industry "roll", as a leading enterprise in the industry, Jinmei New Materials has recently given the answer.
At the 2023 Gaogong Lithium Annual Meeting,Zang Shiwei, chairman of Jinmei New Materialssaid in his speechIn the high-tech field, insisting on large-scale mass production and diversifying customers is the only way to victory.
In the face of many questions and controversies in the industry, Zang Shiwei said that even though there are many voices in the first and second level markets, Jinmei New Materials has always adhered to the concept of "integrity and innovation", and the leading technology and equipment optimization has been in a state of small steps, continuous research and development, innovation, to provide customers with more effective and reliable materials. This should also be the direction that the composite current collector industry should focus on at the moment.
At the meeting,Dr. Sun Yaoming, Director of Jinmei New Material Application CenterThe latest progress of the industrialization of Jinmei new material composite current collector was shared. He said that expansion and breakthrough are the theme of the development of Jinmei New Materials, and as the creator and leader of composite current collectors, Jinmei New Materials will continue to empower its industrialization and scale.
The "expansion" of the aluminium composite current collector MA
Under the trend of high safety, high specific energy, low cost and long life at the power battery end, the market demand for composite current collectors has been gradually released. Among them,The aluminum composite current collector has achieved remarkable results in improving safety by virtue of the characteristics of the first puncture during acupuncture, the base film is a polymer insulated steel needle, and the fusing coating layer is broken during point contact, and the surface contact base film collapses.
Previously, ZEEKR Automobile responded to the smoke incident of Hangzhou ZEEKR 009 vehicle, saying that at the time of the incident, the vehicle had a serious chassis collision, and a single battery cell that was directly impacted was damaged. Except for the damaged cells, the other cells are in a normal state, and there is no thermal runaway and no traces of fire in the vehicles at the scene.
It is reported that the Kirin battery carried by ZEEKR 009 uses aluminum composite current collectors, and its first supplier is Jinmei New Materials. In terms of the loading process, about 30,000 units of Jinmei New Materials' aluminum composite current collector have been installed in 2018, and about 30,000 units of Peugeot have been installed in France, and since April 2023, ZEEKR 009 will be installed, which may be applied to the upcoming Cialis Wenjie M9 model this quarter.
Dr. Sun Yaoming said that from the perspective of the material side,The expansion of aluminum composite current collectors is mainly focused on "reducing costs and increasing efficiency".
On the one hand, large-scale mass production is an important way to achieve cost reduction. At present, the aluminum composite current collector is still in short supply, Jinmei New Materials will continue to expand production capacity and increase production capacity to achieve a 50% increase in shipments in the next stage, and the cost will be reduced by about 50%.
On the other hand, in terms of technology and process, Jinmei New Materials has promoted the progress and iteration of materials, reduced defects, increased roll length, and improved yield through technologies such as polymer, high-performance base film and interface modification and adhesion enhancement, as well as "one excellent and three modernizations" - excellent rate improvement, width standardization, equipment standardization and production digitalization.
The "breakthrough" of the copper composite current collector MC
From the application side, the use of aluminum composite current collectors in batteries will significantly improve the safety of batteries, and the simultaneous use of copper composite current collectors will be of greater significance in reducing costs. In the context of the new cycle of the industry with more stringent requirements for battery cost reduction, the demand for copper composite current collectors in the downstream market has been further released.
Previously, a number of industry insiders said that the industrialization process of composite current collectors is in the stage of leaping from 0 to 1. In this regard, Dr. Sun Yaoming gave a specific explanation and saidJinmei New Materials is focusing on the leap from industry 1 to 100.
He shared that the mass production stage of product development is generally divided into ABCD samples. The first stage is the conceptual design stage, which is mainly to consider what kind of product is needed, at this time, the product is a sample, and a B sample will generally be generated in the process of developing and verifying whether the product process is feasible. Sample A-B is the development stage of the product, that is, the 0-1 stage.
In the subsequent product stage, there will be batch products, stable processes, and finally C samples. Later, the expansion and reproduction stage is the D sample, when there are already stable, customer-verified products and parameters, and the key to production lies in the commercialization of product consistency, capacity, efficiency and cost. From C to D is a 1-100 process.
According to Dr. Sun Yaoming, in 2015, Jinmei New Materials was in the A sample stage, in 2018 it was in the B sample stage, in 2022 it was C sample, and in 2023, the company's expanded reproduction was in the D sample. Since 2020, the design process of copper composite current collector has been fixed, from the sample stage to the product stage, and has been in the capacity ramp-up stage.
In terms of efficiency,The process yield of the copper composite current collector of Jinmei New Materials is greater than 80%., the roll length rises to 10,000 meters;InCost aspectAs the most concerned direction of commercialization, Jinmei New Materials adopts the best cost-effective processThe next phase is expected to be basically the same as the traditional pure metal copper foil, and the next phase is expected to be in the fourth quarter of next year.
In terms of product performance, Dr. Sun Yaoming said that Jinmei New Materials prepared battery cells through optimized design, and found that the copper composite current collector of 6 m was similar to that of 4The 5 m conventional pure metal copper foil is very similar in terms of performance, and there is almost no difference in the capacity retention rate at different magnificationsIn the future, Jinmei New Materials will develop the next generation of 4-5 m ultra-thin and ultra-lightweight products to further empower the improvement of battery energy density.
In terms of production capacity construction, Jinmei New Materials currently has an annual production capacity of about 100 million square meters in the demonstration base in Qijiang, Chongqing. In May this year, Jinmei New Materials' new multi-functional composite current collector expansion base project settled in Yibin, which is mainly used for the construction and production of new multi-functional composite current collector MA and MC production lines, which can deliver about 1.2 billion square meters of new multi-functional composite current collector materials to the new energy market every year after the third phase is fully produced.