On February 5, GAC Ai'an Haobo brand announced that the company has made a new breakthrough in the research and development of all-solid-state batteries.
Li Jin, head of Haobo battery R&D department, said that the key point of this technological breakthrough is to increase the energy density of all-solid-state batteries from 300Wh kg to 350Wh kg, which means that the battery power can be increased by 3 times under the same weight.
It is generally believed in the industry that this technological improvement marks a further step forward in the all-solid-state battery, and the industrial innovation of lithium battery has also ushered in new progress.
Not long ago, China's all-solid-state battery industry-university-research collaborative innovation platform was unveiled in Beijing. Guo Shougang, deputy director of the First Department of Equipment Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the new generation of power batteries represented by all-solid-state batteries has become an important direction for the future development of the global power battery industry.
CITIC ** judged that with the industrialization of semi-solid-state batteries and the leading of vehicle loading, the future of all-solid-state batteries can be expected. At the same time, with the cost reduction and industrialization of the industrial chain, all links of the solid-state battery industry will fully benefit.
Semi-solid-state batteries go first
Traditional liquid lithium batteries are mainly composed of four key elements: positive electrode, negative electrode, electrolyte and separator. A solid-state battery, on the other hand, is a type of battery that uses a solid-state electrode and a solid-state electrolyte.
The two ends of the traditional liquid lithium battery are the positive and negative electrodes of the battery, and the liquid electrolyte is in the middle. During the back and forth movement of lithium ions from the positive electrode to the negative electrode and then to the positive electrode, the charging and discharging process of the battery is completed. Solid-state batteries work on the same principle, where the lithium ions in the positive electrode are deintercalated from the active material and migrate to the negative electrode through the solid electrolyte during charging.
A R&D personnel from the Power Battery Research Institute and engaged in the research and development of solid-state batteries told the **Times reporter that although the liquid battery technology has been relatively mature, there are still potential safety hazards such as battery thermal runaway, and with the rapid expansion of the market capacity of new energy vehicles, the urgent demand for high energy density and high safety of power batteries promotes the development of solid-state batteries.
Compared with liquid lithium batteries, solid-state batteries have the advantages of high safety, high energy density, small size, and low temperature resistance.
It is reported that solid-state batteries can be divided into three types: semi-solid, quasi-solid, and all-solid, and the difference lies in the quality of the liquid electrolyte contained. Among them, the mass percentage of liquid electrolyte of semi-solid-state batteries is less than 10%, the mass percentage of liquid electrolyte of quasi-solid-state batteries is less than 5%, and the all-solid-state battery does not contain any liquid electrolyte, and its electrolyte material is solid.
At present, all solid-state batteries are mainly in the R&D and trial production stage on a global scale. The above-mentioned R&D personnel said that from liquid batteries to solid-state batteries, they will first face changes in electrolyte materials, which will then bring about a process change.
According to reports, there are currently three mainstream technical routes for solid-state batteries, including polymer solid-state batteries, oxide solid-state batteries and sulfide solid-state batteries.
The material technology and preparation technology are not mature enough, and the production cost is too high, which has become the main factor restricting the industrialization of all-solid-state batteries. The industry generally believes that it will take at least 10 years for all-solid-state batteries to be industrialized on a large scale. Because of this, semi-solid-state batteries have become recognized as a more industrialized technical route.
According to reports, at present, overseas companies such as Japan, South Korea, Europe and the United States are more inclined to sulfide technology routes, and are committed to the development of all-solid-state batteries, and the industrialization process is relatively slow; Most domestic companies choose the oxide technology route, and most of the products developed are semi-solid-state batteries.
At the end of 2023, Li Bin, founder and chairman of NIO, measured the range of a 150kWh ultra-long-lasting battery pack through a live broadcast, bringing the mass production of semi-solid-state batteries to a realistic scene. The NIO ET7, an all-electric sedan equipped with this battery, ended up traveling 1,044 kilometers with a total driving time of 124 hours.
Li Bin revealed that NIO's 150kWh battery is currently the world's largest mass-produced battery pack with the highest energy density, which can be adapted to all NIO models on sale.
It is reported that Weilan New Energy is the leading cell supplier of this battery, focusing on the business of hybrid solid-liquid lithium batteries and all-solid-state batteries.
Coincidentally, in August 2023, Qingtao Energy, which is also a start-up battery company, and SAIC Motor jointly developed the first-generation semi-solid-state battery loading experiment, with a maximum range of 1,083 kilometers.
SAIC Motor revealed that semi-solid-state batteries will be mass-produced in different models of the company from 2024. Among them, the Zhiji L6 will be the first to apply semi-solid-state battery technology.
Guotai Junan** analysis said that the popularization of solid-state batteries will start with semi-solid state and gradually increase. In the future, when the technology is stable and the cost decreases after the process is determined, the semi-solid-state battery will slowly increase in volume, and then gradually iterate to pure solid-state battery.
Leading car companies are vying to be the first to layout
Since the beginning of this year, there have been frequent new trends in the solid-state battery track. In early January, Quantum Landscape, a US-listed solid-state battery company, announced that the solid-state battery developed by the company had passed the 500,000-kilometer durability test of Volkswagen of Germany. According to the Volkswagen Group, the battery has been tested for several months and has completed 1,000 charge cycles.
Subsequently, Toyota announced that it had successfully overcome the bottleneck of solid-state batteries, and its released solid-state batteries have made significant breakthroughs in energy density and charging speed, with a range of 1,500 kilometers in 10 minutes of charging.
In terms of domestic car companies, NIO, Changan, BYD, Geely, SAIC, GAC, Great Wall, VOYAH, and Cialis are all accelerating the layout of solid-state battery technology routes.
Among them, GAC Group has clearly announced that it has made a breakthrough in the field of solid-state batteries, which can meet the safety and reliability requirements of batteries in extreme environments when the energy density of the battery cells reaches 400Wh kg, and plans to realize the installation in 2026.
At the end of 2023, Changan Automobile and Ganfeng Lithium jointly signed a "Memorandum of Cooperation", planning to accelerate the joint venture project and manufacturing industrialization project of (semi-)solid-state battery research and development, and cooperate based on the research and development of (semi-)solid-state battery for next-generation automotive power batteries.
It is reported that the solid-state battery currently being developed by Changan Automobile can reach 350-500 watt-hour kilograms by weight and 750-1000 watt-hour liters, and the battery is expected to be fully popularized in 2030.
In fact, the layout of solid-state batteries by leading car companies is inseparable from the support of power battery companies. At present, CATL, China Innovation Airlines, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Honeycomb Energy, EVE Lithium Energy, Ganfeng Lithium, etc. are all accelerating the technological innovation and commercialization of solid-state batteries.
Zheng Xiang, head of the strategic brand of China Innovation Airlines, told the **Times reporter that in recent years, the company has done a lot of research and development work around semi-solid-state and solid-state batteries, and the next stage is to promote cost reduction and make costs more optimized.
In his opinion, it will take some time for all-solid-state batteries to be commercialized. After the technology matures, solid-state batteries can be applied not only in the field of passenger cars, but also in aerospace. Only by striking a good balance between cost and technology can the commercialization of solid-state batteries be possible.
It is expected to reshape the battery industry chain
At present, the new generation of power batteries represented by all-solid-state batteries has become an important direction for the future development of the global power battery industry. In order to encourage technological innovation, in recent years, China has introduced a series of policies to support relevant enterprises to tackle key problems around all-solid-state battery technology.
The "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)" released in 2020 pointed out that it is necessary to accelerate the research and development and industrialization of solid-state power battery technology. This is the first time that China has raised the research and development of solid-state batteries to the national level.
On January 19 this year, Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, specifically mentioned that in the next step, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology should support enterprises to carry out joint innovation, increase technical research on automotive chips, all-solid-state batteries, and high-level autonomous driving, and further enhance the market competitiveness of products.
Subsequently, China's all-solid-state battery industry-university-research collaborative innovation platform was officially unveiled. Chen Liquan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and researcher of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said at the unveiling event that to improve the energy density, rate performance and cycle life of all-solid-state batteries, we should not only pay attention to the basic scientific issues of all-solid-state lithium batteries, such as new electrolyte materials, interface modification and battery failure mechanisms, but also pay attention to the key technical issues of all-solid-state batteries, such as mass production and preparation technology of electrolyte, continuous preparation technology of large-area solid-state electrolyte film, and integrated preparation technology of all-solid-state battery.
Affected by the above news, since the beginning of this year, the A-share solid-state battery sector has shown a slight upward trend, and when the rise of technology, Rongbai technology, Xiangfenghua, Shanshan shares and other industrial chain related companies have carried out technological innovation around the development trend of solid-state batteries.
Taking Dangsheng Technology as an example, the company has independently developed a variety of cathode materials such as solid-state lithium battery cathode materials and new lithium-rich manganese-based materials. In 2021 and 2022, Dangsheng Technology will receive large orders for Weilan New Energy and Qingtao Energy respectively, and the core of the procurement is solid-state lithium battery materials.
In fact, not only cathode and anode material companies, but also electrolyte companies that would otherwise be impacted by the trend of solid-state batteries are also accelerating technological innovation.
Capchem, a leading electrolyte company, revealed that at present, the company has applied for more than 30 patents related to solid-state batteries, and the joint-stock company has built a trial production platform and test line for solid-state batteries.
CITIC ** judged that with the industrialization of semi-solid-state batteries, the future of all-solid-state batteries can be expected. In terms of material system, it is expected that the cathode material will transition from high-nickel ternary to lithium-rich manganese-based, and the anode will transition from silicon-carbon anode to lithium metal. With the cost reduction and industrialization of the industrial chain, all links of the solid-state battery industry will fully benefit.