Producer | Tiger sniffs the editor in the southwest
The author | Rainforest Down, Lewis
The title image | Visual China
On January 11, Sichuan-based Tianqi Lithium (002466) announced that SES, a high-performance lithium metal battery manufacturing company in which it has a stake, will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Taking this opportunity, lithium mining giants will also have a seat in the field of new batteries.
Investors who comb through SES will find that in addition to Tianqi Lithium, it also includes a long list of auto bigwigs such as General Motors, Hyundai, Kia, Geely, and SAIC.
The simultaneous participation of a number of leading companies shows the importance that the industry attaches to lithium metal batteries.
Lithium metal batteries and lithium-ion batteries both belong to the lithium battery category, and the main difference between the two brothers is the negative electrode material.
The former, with graphite and silicon as the negative electrode, has been widely used after more than two decades of development. However, the specific capacity is low, and it is difficult to further break through the bottleneck of energy density, so people have set their sights on lithium metal with high specific capacity and regard it as the "potential stock" of the next generation of battery systems.
However, the application of lithium metal also has some old difficulties: first of all, it is the safety hazard caused by the formation of lithium dendrites.
After the battery is charged and discharged many times, dendritic lithium crystals will continue to grow on the surface of the lithium metal, and a large number of sharp dendrites will stress the diaphragm and puncture it, causing a short-circuit explosion and other thermal runaways, as if a bomb from time to time.
In the 1980s, The Canadian company Moli Energy, which was popular with the first lithium metal battery, fell from glory to decline due to many fire incidents, and the lesson of blood and tears also made the entire industry turn to the graphite negative electrode.
Secondly, the infinite volume expansion of lithium metal will cause its lithium electrode to be powdered, electrolyte consumption, and large amounts of gas production and expansion.
Although lithium metal is too "naughty", due to the excellent foundation, battery manufacturers have not given up taming this lively anode material.
Xiang Yanhuo, president of the passenger car solution department of CATL China, revealed at the 2021 Global New Energy Vehicle Conference, "After nearly 10 years of research, we believe that the all-solid-state metal battery using lithium metal as the anode material is the optimal development direction of solid-state batteries. He pointed out that the technology can improve battery safety and energy density from the essence, and the Ningde era will continue to invest, but the current key technologies and processes still need to be jointly conquered by the industry.
Ganfeng Lithium (002460) mentioned in the 2020 performance briefing that the second generation of solid-state batteries developed by it is based on high-nickel ternary cathode, metal-containing lithium anode materials, with an energy density of more than 350Wh/kg and a cycle life of nearly 400 times. Last year, its subsidiary Yichun Ganfeng also planned to invest 2.2 billion yuan in Jiangxi phased construction of the "high specific energy solid-state battery ultra-thin lithium anode material project".
Overseas, Japan's National Institute of Industrial Science and Technology, South Korea's Samsung R&D Research Institute, and Tesla Australia's Research Institute are also promoting lithium metal battery research and development.
Zheng Juncong, managing partner of Xiangfeng Investment, explained the reasons why lithium metal batteries are valued by capital for Tiger Sniff: first, compared with other power solutions, their energy storage can be doubled under the same volume; second, the advanced realization of fast charging technology is conducive to commercialization; third, compared with lithium-ion batteries, the price has not risen much, which is a cost-effective choice of high quality and low price.
In November 2021, SES released an Apollo lithium metal battery with a capacity of 107Ah, weighing only 0.982Kg and having an energy density of 417Wh/kg and 935Wh/L, which is the largest known lithium metal battery in the world.
In order to understand this technical route more specifically, Tiger Sniff asked Dr. Hu Qichao, the founder of SES, to find out.
Hu Qichao told Tiger Sniff that in recent years, everyone has been developing lithium metal batteries, but no company has ever made the battery cell to the car level, so the appearance of Apollo has caused a certain shock in the industry.
There are many ways to name batteries on the market, some are based on cathode materials, such as ternary lithium, tetranychedium, lithium iron phosphate; some are based on electrolytes, such as solid, mixed; some are based on negative electrode materials, such as lithium metal, lithium ions.
Looking around the lithium metal battery, there is a 60% similarity with lithium-ion batteries. The compatibility of the production line and process is very high, the cathode material and diaphragm can almost be used, and the remaining 40% difference is reflected in the electrolyte, anode material and software monitoring.
The improvement of the high concentration lithium salt electrolyte can make the lithium dendrite smooth and dense, avoid puncturing the diaphragm, and also make the positive electrode have good oxidation stability at high voltages and are not flammable.
The chemical system of lithium metal is completely different from that of traditional graphite and silicon, so the electrodes of conventional lithium-ion batteries cannot be used and need to be redeveloped.
Monitoring battery life and failure mechanisms also requires new software concepts. For lithium metal batteries, the impact of the external environment on the invisible performance is sometimes greater than the impact of the materials in the cell on the system, so it is necessary to strictly control the environment, temperature, pressure, humidity and charging and discharging speed of the battery.
The main significance of the battery with lithium metal anode material for car companies is that it can greatly improve the mileage of the car and reduce the cost of unit energy density. Volkswagen, Ford, Honda, BMW, Geely and other well-known car companies are almost all laying out.
Car companies will generally have many different brands of lines, for high-end line models, such as Porsche, Cadillac will use the more expensive high-nickel ternary lithium to do the positive pole, for the low-end Volkswagen brands, such as Chevrolet, SAIC, Mazda will be paired with relatively cheap lithium iron phosphate to do the positive pole.
Speaking of the application progress, Hu Qichao said that the general new battery needs to go through several major links of engineering samples, A samples, B samples, C samples, and mass production before getting on the car, of which the engineering samples have about five years of development cycle, A samples have two years, B and C samples are each one year, and finally mass production. At present, SES has signed a lithium metal battery A sample function development agreement with GM and Hyundai, and it is expected to be available on the car around 2025.
As the world's first company to start jointly developing lithium metal A samples with large car companies, Hu Qichao believes that SES's early collaboration with downstream manufacturers is not only a first-mover advantage in time, but also another moat in addition to the core technology.
In addition to lithium, nickel is also scarce
The power battery is in the wave of comprehensive upgrading, and the scientific research teams have launched an attack on the subdivision plate without dead ends. But after spelling out the technology, it will eventually return to the cost, compared to the raw materials.
As the protagonist, lithium is naturally the focus of the stage chasing lights. Not only the local tycoon bosses in the primary market have placed bets, heavy gold and mines, and the prices of related stocks in the secondary market have also risen together, and the rise is gratifying.
Tianqi Lithium is a raw material supplier held by SES 9.34%, has long laid out the lithium industry, and also seized the opportunity to swallow the elephant, acquired the world's highest quality spodumene mine Talison lithium mine, participated in the largest salt lake lithium mine zabuye salt lake, and won the mining rights of the Thora spodumene mine in Yajiang County, Sichuan, which is undoubtedly a solid rear of the battery company.
Of course, there is a price behind the glamour. Due to the aggressive expansion, especially after the high premium acquisition of 23.77% of chilean SQM in 2018, Tianqi Lithium was once plagued by a serious debt crisis, and Q2 2021 was its first profit in seven consecutive quarters. Even if the current crisis is basically lifted, the pressure on capital turnover is still there.
On the consensus of "lithium famine", Hu Qichao added his judgment on the "nickel famine" to tiger sniffing. The global electric vehicle battery has hundreds of GWh, by 2030 there may be a number of TWh, if the total cost of power batteries at that time fell below $60 / KWh, basically can not squeeze out much profit to the upstream and downstream, and can be compared, only who has the mine in their hands.
But in the entire battery system, in addition to lithium, nickel, manganese, and cobalt are also scarce, especially nickel.
At present, increasing nickel content is the trend. For example, the proportion of nickel in ternary and quaternary lithium batteries has increased from 50% in the past to 80% or even higher, but the content of nickel in the earth's crust is not even 1% of lithium, so the possibility of nickel shortage should also be considered in the future.
Competition will put pressure on individual companies and create efficiency for the industry. I have to say that the continuous emergence of entrepreneurial rookies has made the next generation of power batteries more exciting and intense.
With the acceleration of the process of industrial development, the evaluation standards of technology companies will also be correspondingly improved.
In addition to the high and low parameters, the completeness of the production line, the linkage of the upstream, the expansion of customers, the management of the team and other dimensions will force the founders of science and technology from science and engineering to step out of the comfort zone of digital logic, deal with the more complex market environment head-on, and feel the emotional challenges that come from the face. And these are perhaps the most difficult before the commercialization of new technologies.