Doesn't the new energy industry have any sectors that have not been deeply explored? Not much, but there are, such as the subdivision industry we are going to talk about today.
How fierce the new energy speculation last year, needless to say, almost all the subdivisions have been hyped, to say that there is no new energy plate that has not been hyped at all, but there is no too much plate that has been hyped, and indeed, the aluminum-plastic film is, the reason is also very simple, this industry is indeed almost meaningless, because it can be said that it is one of the few new energy industries, and it has not been fully localized.
2022 aluminum-plastic film deserves attention
Why is aluminum-plastic film worth paying attention to in 2022, in fact, the core logic has been said before in the research of Fu Neng Technology: 2022 must be selected stocks, soft package lithium battery, only 30 billion Fu Neng Technology, the next Ningde era?
Optimistic about the possible opportunities of Fu Neng Technology in 2022, it is because it is China's soft pack battery leader, and in 2022, the soft pack lithium battery is expected to be greatly increased, because the traditional fuel vehicle will accelerate the development of new energy vehicles in 22 years, especially the traditional fuel vehicle giants in Europe, and the large manufacturers in Europe use more soft pack lithium batteries.
This logic is reasonable, electric vehicles are already an irreversible trend, which has formed a consensus, and many traditional fuel vehicle giants are currently lagging behind Tesla, as well as a number of domestic new energy vehicle manufacturers, but they will certainly not sit still, and this year will definitely be desperate to catch up.
In this process, soft-pack lithium batteries, as one of the three major technical routes of lithium batteries, are expected to grow with the strength of European automakers.
Of course, although the logic is smooth, but in the end it will not be realized, there are also some uncertainties, such as whether European and Japanese manufacturers will definitely focus on soft-pack lithium batteries? Especially for cars sold to China, will they adopt square pack batteries in the countryside? Just like Volkswagen ID.
It can only be said that 2022 is worth paying attention to, and we must continue to track the situation of new energy vehicles in traditional fuel vehicle companies, and the new cars they release, especially the lithium battery types of these new cars.
OK, after the logic is clear, we can take a good look at the basic situation of the aluminum-plastic film industry.
Aluminum plastic film industry
Previously, when analyzing Fu Neng Technology, the performance and advantages and disadvantages of the cylindrical, square and soft pack lithium battery technology route have been compared, and it should be said that the soft pack battery is still good overall.
In fact, compared with round and square batteries, soft-pack lithium batteries belong to more technologically advanced solutions, with better safety and higher energy density of monomers.
From the composition of the soft-packed lithium battery, it can be seen that the importance of aluminum-plastic film, accounting for 15-20% of the cost of battery cell materials, belongs to a very important part, in addition, it is still the only part of the battery cell material that has not yet completed the domestic substitution, and now the domestic aluminum-plastic film is still mainly imported.
Aluminum-plastic film composition
In general, the thickness of aluminum-plastic film varies from 83μm to 153μm, mainly after four processes of compounding, from the outside to the inside are: nylon layer, adhesive, intermediate layer by aluminum foil, adhesive, inner layer heat sealing layer and other materials.
In terms of composition costs, the cost of aluminum foil materials accounts for about 35%, other materials account for 20-30%, and manufacturing and labor account for 40%.
Aluminum-plastic film has not been fully localized
We all know that in the field of new energy, China's production rate is very high, especially in the photovoltaic industry, in fact, the new energy automobile industry is similar, in addition to some automotive chips and other core automotive electronics.
The aluminum-plastic film is an industry that has not yet been fully localized, and Japanese and Korean companies monopolize more than 70% of the production capacity, of which the Japanese DNP alone occupies more than 50% of the market share, and the other is 12% of the Japanese Showa Electric and 11% of the South Korean Kurimura Chemical.
Fortunately, everything has advantages and disadvantages, and has not been fully localized, in turn, it can be said that aluminum-plastic film is one of the few lithium battery industry chains, and there is a huge domestic substitution space for the industry, just like a big gold mine to be tapped.
The production process and process of aluminum-plastic film
The production of aluminum-plastic film mainly includes 5 steps, namely surface treatment & coating, heat treatment, lamination, double-sided treatment, and curing slitting.
There are two main types of specific processes: dry and thermal.
Dry process: Proposed by Showa Electric and Sony, the heat sealing layer is directly bonded and pressed with the aluminum foil layer. The method is simple in process, the product has excellent anti-short circuit performance, good depth performance, but poor electrolyte resistance and water resistance, mainly used in high-capacity soft pack consumer batteries, power batteries.
Thermal process: Jointly developed by Daiichi Printing and Nissan Corporation, it uses modified polyethylene MPP to connect the aluminum foil layer with the heat sealing layer, and then thermal synthesis is carried out by slow heating and pressure increase. The process flow of this method is simple, the product has good resistance to electrolyte and water, but the depth molding performance is poor, the anti-short circuit performance is poor, and it is mainly used in consumer soft pack batteries.
In recent years, the domestic Mingguan New Material has innovated the process and proposed the dry-heat composite method, so that the advantages of both methods can be retained.
The reason for the low localization rate of aluminum-plastic film
In 2020, domestic aluminum-plastic film shipments accounted for only 25% of the world, significantly lower than the four main materials, but on the other hand, the domestic industry is very concentrated, in 2020 the industry CR3 is 76%, CR5 up to 92%, significantly higher than other links, the reason is that the technical difficulty of aluminum-plastic film is relatively large.
In fact, aluminum-plastic film can be said to be one of the products with the highest technical barriers in the lithium battery industry chain.
Because it has many requirements for the product, including good appearance, barrier resistance, heat sealing strength, blister resistance, puncture resistance, electrolyte resistance, high temperature resistance, insulation, excellent stamping molding, etc. After all, it is closely related to security.
However, although the technical requirements are high, but it is an asset-light industry, from the investment situation of several domestic enterprises, basically the aluminum-plastic film unit GWh investment is about 8 million yuan, and the industry giants can generally recover the input cost in 3 to 4 years, which can be said to be quite good.
There are three main barriers to aluminum-plastic film: equipment, raw materials and processes.
However, the main thing is the raw material, including the aluminum foil material with high purity and high stiffness, and the binder.
And the production process, because the production of aluminum-plastic film needs to use 4-7 layers of composite materials, the substrate and lamination modification and treatment, and the same material for casting composite method, multi-layer co-extrusion method and other processing treatment, in addition to the aluminum foil surface treatment process will affect the surface cleanliness and surface tension of the substrate, and then affect the composite film bond strength, plus the aluminum-plastic film pays attention to the consistency between the batches, stability, and yield, are closely related to the accumulation of enterprise process level.
As for the production equipment, the problem is relatively small, the equipment required for the production of aluminum-plastic film, such as laminating machines, slitting machines, maturing ovens, incinerator RTO, curing equipment, intelligent storage systems, cleanroom systems, power distribution facilities and other auxiliary equipment.
Most of them can be localized, and many equipment is not much different from the domestic gap, and domestic manufacturers are gradually using domestic equipment.
In general, aluminum-plastic film does have considerable technical content, but compared to chips and other high-end precision fields, there is still a big gap, we can have relatively large progress in the chip, for aluminum-plastic film does not need too much worry.
In the next few years, aluminum-plastic film will gradually usher in the development opportunity of domestic substitution, superimposed on the installed capacity of soft-pack lithium batteries, this industry is still very worth looking forward to.
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