February 15 news, according to the Nikkei Chinese Network reported that the Japanese Edico company recently developed a new generation of lithium-sulfur battery prototypes, energy density can reach twice the existing lithium batteries, the endurance is greatly improved. At present, Edico is cooperating with battery manufacturers to achieve the commercialization of electrode material sales in 2030 and promote the large-scale commercialization of lithium-sulfur batteries.
Last week, Xiao Lei reported that engineers at Drexel University in the United States have made significant progress in the research and development of lithium-sulfur batteries, developing a new type of battery with stronger stability, with a capacity of three times that of conventional lithium batteries. However, one of the materials in this new type of battery is not yet understood, and it is still difficult to scale commercialization, and it is estimated that it will take a long research and development time.
Japan's Edico Company has also developed a new electrode material, "sulfide polyacrylonitrile (SPAN)" made of polymers and sulfur. The sulfur concentration of this material is 48%, which is about 10% higher than the previous material. The higher the sulfur concentration in the sulfur-containing electrode material, the greater the power storage, but the durability of the battery may also be greatly reduced.
At present, the energy density of this lithium-sulfur battery is 500Wh/kg, while the energy density of conventional lithium batteries is about 100~265Wh/kg, which is more than doubled. Once this battery can really be applied to electric vehicles, the range will be greatly improved, and the cost of the battery will also be reduced.
Unfortunately, this battery currently has a cycle life of only a few dozen times, and it is also necessary to improve battery life by improving the negative electrode performance. Although it is still a long time before the real commercial use of lithium-sulfur batteries, at least there is still hope. Nowadays, the global demand for lithium batteries has soared, and all car companies can basically only rely on ternary lithium and lithium iron phosphate two batteries, it is difficult to have a greater breakthrough in endurance, and the cost is becoming more and more expensive.
The development of new batteries is really imminent, although lithium and sulfur batteries still have lithium in raw materials, but the use of sulfur to replace rare metals such as cobalt, manganese, nickel, the cost can still be reduced a lot. More critical is the increase in battery capacity, which is quite critical to solving many of the pain points of current electric vehicles.
Of course, for the sake of a longer-term future, it is still necessary to explore more new battery materials, and should not continue to be rooted in lithium batteries. The content of lithium resources in the mainland is not high, and it basically relies on imports, which is very unfavorable to the development of the mainland's new energy industry. Last year, CATL launched a sodium-ion battery, which should be commercialized within a year or two, and it is expected that more new batteries with stronger performance will be born in the future.