Thoughts on the development of power batteries

With the general trend of global carbon neutrality and the rapid growth of the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the global lithium battery industry maintains a high level of prosperity, among which power lithium batteries are the main factor driving the growth of the industry. With the continuous improvement of industry maturity, the technological innovation of power lithium batteries has transitioned from policy-driven to market-driven, and supply-side enterprises are actively deploying various technologies to promote the medium-to-long-term development of lithium batteries.

From the perspective of the medium-term development of lithium batteries, it is mainly through the iterative upgrade of the existing material system and structural innovation to promote the improvement of energy density and achieve efficiency and cost reduction:

Material iteration: positive and negative electrode materials are the core factors that determine the energy density of power batteries, and the breakthrough of positive electrode materials is most likely to bring about a subversive improvement in the energy density of power batteries. In the short to medium term, positive electrode materials will still maintain the parallel pattern of lithium iron phosphate and ternary materials, and technical iterations will be carried out on the basis of the current chemical system; high-nickel ternary materials still have adaptation value in the process of developing from semi-solid to all-solid, Broad prospects.

Structural innovation: Under the mature and applied lithium battery material system, structural improvement and simplification are carried out in terms of battery cells, modules, and packaging methods to improve the system performance of the battery. Structural innovation is another path besides material iteration. Important technological development path.

From the perspective of the long-term development of lithium batteries, it is a clear trend in the industry to continuously reduce the electrolyte content and develop towards solid-state batteries, but all-solid-state batteries still face relatively large technical challenges:

The solid-state trend is clear: Compared with traditional liquid batteries, solid-state batteries have obvious advantages in terms of energy density and safety. Lithium battery companies and vehicle companies in the industrial chain are actively increasing R&D investment to lay out solid-state battery technology. The current industry progress is in the semi-solid state The stage of development to all solid state.

All-solid-state is difficult: Although the industry generally holds a consensus on the trend of solid-state development, it is still a long way to overcome key technical problems such as the interface impedance of all-solid-state batteries, and it is still far away to achieve large-scale deployment; considering technical difficulties and costs from a practical perspective However, a solid-liquid hybrid battery that reduces the electrolyte content to an extremely low level may be a more commercially practical solution.

From the point of view that the long-term development of lithium batteries will be restricted by the shortage of lithium resources, sodium-ion batteries have become an important alternative route, and will form a complementary pattern with lithium batteries after commercialization:

Sodium-lithium complementary pattern: Na-ion batteries have significant advantages in resource richness and cost, but due to the limitation of energy density of the chemical system, it is currently difficult to shake the position of lithium batteries in the field of passenger car power batteries. It is expected to take the lead in achieving large-scale commercial applications in scenarios such as energy storage and low-speed vehicles in the future