"With the improvement of lithium carbonate supply capacity, it will gradually return to the basic demand side, and it is expected that a complete supply and demand balance may be restored after two or three years." On March 26, Ouyang Minggao, vice chairman of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Association and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, made this judgment on the imbalance between supply and demand of battery raw materials at the 2022 Electric Vehicle 100 High-level Forum.
At the same time, he also mentioned that considering the deterioration of the trade environment and the speculation on nickel prices brought about by the Russo-Ukrainian war, for the sake of supply security, it is necessary to take favorable measures to combat hoarding and curb the short-term sharp fluctuations in nickel prices, so as not to affect the sales of new energy vehicles this year.
Ouyang Minggao said that the rise in battery raw materials mainly comes from three reasons, one is the explosive growth of new energy vehicles, battery prices have risen, and the transmission of materials has produced an "amplification effect"; the second is the supply delay, the release cycle of lithium carbonate production capacity in typical ore production is 3-5 years, and the lithium extraction cycle of brine is longer; the third is that the impact of the epidemic affects the production of lithium resources, and the transportation capacity affects the supply.
The reasons for the current round of price increases and the rise in lithium resources in 2016-2018 are basically the same. At that time, the mainland new energy vehicles from the incubation period to the growth period also led to the lithium price increase process, and now from the growth period to the rapid growth period is such a process, the two processes are very similar, that is, the growth of demand and expectations, but this time is stronger than the last time, coupled with the impact of the epidemic, so the amplitude is larger.
Therefore, "from the perspective of supply and demand, the demand amplification brought about by panic inventory reserves is temporary." Ouyang Minggao explained this judgment from three aspects: lithium resource storage, battery material recovery method, and development of new material systems.
First of all, the global lithium resources economic recoverable reserves increased rapidly, 2005-2010 increased by 400%, now the global economic recoverable reserves of 22 million tons, to NCM811 battery as an example, can produce 227TWh power battery, 100 kWh per vehicle is a battery, can be installed more than 2.27 billion vehicles. As demand increases, new exploration volumes and recoverable reserves will continue to increase, and resources are fully sufficient.
Secondly, it is expected that after 2030, the recycling of battery materials will form a scale; around 2050, the supply of original mineral resources and recycled resources will reach a considerable level; in the longer term, recycled resources will gradually completely replace the demand for original resources. Due to the rising value of materials, the recycling industry has ushered in opportunities.
In terms of battery material recycling, due to the large energy consumption emissions of battery material production and recycling, it is necessary to pay attention to the energy saving and emission reduction of battery recycling, and vigorously carry out scientific and technological research on battery recycling and regeneration.
Ouyang Minggao introduced that there are three main battery recycling methods. One is physical recovery, through recycling can reduce the carbon emissions of the entire battery production chain; the second is fire recovery, but the recovery method reduces carbon less, and the energy consumption is relatively large; the third is wet recycling, the energy consumption of the wet method will be reduced, but there are problems such as liquid solvent pollutant emissions. Now the most respected is physical recycling, which can reduce carbon emissions and other pollutants, which is also the biggest area of current recycling technology innovation, ultrasonic recovery, plasma recovery are recently reported new technologies.
In addition, the use of green electricity is a fundamental way for battery production and recycling carbon emissions to be further reduced significantly. Therefore, the battery industry should be concentrated in green power areas, such as the west. Sichuan is a gathering place, there are already five hundred GWh production capacity, Yibin a region has 200GWh, is the world's single largest battery production base, but also a battery material agglomeration area, new energy agglomeration area, is a very good future battery production base.
Third, the industry is developing new material systems. According to the timeline, the development trend of the future battery material system is mainly as follows: the industrialization target of 2025, mass-produced batteries should generally reach 350 Wh / kg, and now the average is less than 300 Wh / kg. This system we call the liquid system, mainly including conventional lithium-ion battery materials, solid-liquid mixed materials, as well as sodium ions, the future potassium ions and other liquid battery material systems.
From the perspective of development path, the goal of 2030 is to achieve 400 Wh / kg, all-round industrialization, this stage is called liquid to solid transition, including liquid high voltage, thick electrode, less electrolyte; positive high nickel such as Ni95, negative silicon carbon; and quasi-solid-state battery system. 2030 should be a key node in the transition to the development of all-solid-state batteries. In 2030, we estimate that the proportion of domestic all-solid-state batteries will not exceed 1%.
The goal for 2035 is to reach 500 Wh/kg and achieve industrialization. Includes all-solid-state batteries, lithium-sulfur batteries, and high-capacity lithium-rich manganese-based materials, and the voltage window will be increased to 5 volts.
From the battery specific energy and battery life two dimensions to analyze, the future will be a multi-technical route, the first is a high specific energy and low-cost liquid liquid technical route, positive pole high nickel ternary to lithium-rich manganese-based, negative electrode from a high proportion of silicon carbon to lithium metal, specific energy target of 500wh / kg, but the life is low; the second technical route is a liquid compromise route, taking into account the specific energy, safety and cost and life, high nickel cathode system, life does not drop ratio energy increased by 50%, Or more than 3 times more than the energy does not drop life to approach 10,000 cycles; the third is a high-safety liquid route based on lithium iron, with the lowest cost and long life up to more than 10,000 cycles. On the surface of recent years of research, the liquid route can go to 500 Wh / kg, and the liquid ternary can also do 10,000 cycles, not only lithium iron phosphate can do 10,000 cycles. The fourth is the solid-state technology route, that is, high specific energy, high safety, from the existing liquid to solid-liquid mixing to all-solid. The fifth route is from sodium ions, and in the future there will be potassium ions and the like.
In addition, both the single battery structure and the battery system are constantly innovating, gradually reducing the attached weight and volume, so that the battery system has a continuous increase in specific energy. For example, Tesla from 18650 to 21700 to 4680, domestic batteries from soft packs, square hard shells to blade batteries, as well as short knives and One-stop, etc., and for example, the traditional battery pack's battery cells, modules to battery packs are gradually developed in the direction of removing modules and removing the whole package, thus constituting CTC (deep integration of single body and chassis), CTV (deep integration of single body and vehicle).