Since 2018, many companies, including Lishen Battery, have made technological breakthroughs in high nickel NCM 811 and NCA ternary batteries, which has also driven the application of silicon carbon anode materials. Recently, Guoxuan Hi-Tech released a record of interaction with investors. The high-nickel NCM 811 ternary soft pack sample prepared by it has recently passed the mid-term inspection by the Ministry of Science and Technology, and its energy density reaches 302 Wh / kg. The negative electrode is made of silicon carbon material.
5 billion yuan market
Experimental research shows that, as a new lithium-ion battery anode material, silicon carbon anode can play a more significant role in improving battery energy density than graphite anode. The application of silicon carbon anode material can increase the active material content in the battery, thereby greatly increasing the capacity of the single cell.
In the "Action Plan for Promoting the Development of the Automotive Power Battery Industry" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other four ministries, the specific energy of the new lithium-ion power battery cells in China will exceed 300 Wh / kg by 2020, and the specific energy of the cells will reach 500 Wh / kg by 2025. Traditional graphite materials are difficult to meet this requirement, so on the path of high energy density development, the positive electrode of power batteries uses high nickel ternary materials, and the negative electrode needs to be used with silicon carbon negative electrode materials.
It is not difficult to conclude that NCM 811 and NCA will become the mainstream of the power battery market in the future. As the silicon carbon anode preparation process and battery manufacturers' technologies for high nickel systems gradually mature, silicon carbon anodes will usher in a broader market in the future. Data show that in 2018, the domestic consumption of silicon-carbon composite materials reached 2,000-3,000 tons, which has doubled from the same period last year. It is predicted that the domestic silicon carbon anode material market space will reach 5 billion yuan in 2020.
Ningde Times / Lishen Battery / Guoxuan Hi-Tech / BYD
From an international point of view, silicon carbon materials have been widely used in Japanese and Korean enterprises, and Panasonic and Samsung products have mature applications. Tesla has applied silicon-carbon anodes to automotive power batteries. The silicon-carbon anodes used in Model 3 have 10% silicon added to traditional graphite anode materials to increase the battery capacity to more than 550mAh / g. Above 300wh / kg; Japan's Panasonic has achieved mass production of silicon-carbon anode material 18650 battery; Japan's Yuasa Battery has launched a silicon-carbon anode material lithium battery for use in Mitsubishi Motors; Hitachi Maxell has developed a high-current capacity silicon anode Lithium batteries; Japan's Mitsui Metals has pushed silicon negative lithium batteries to consumer electronics and electric vehicles.
From the domestic situation, battery companies such as Ningde Times, Lishen Battery, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, BYD, BAK Power, Wanxiang A123, and Weihong Power are accelerating the development and trial production of silicon carbon anode system. In terms of materials companies, Battelle's carbon-silicon anodes have entered Tesla's supply chain, supporting some anode materials for Panasonic's power battery cells; Shanshan Co., Ltd. and Jiangxi Zijing have a small amount of trial production capacity In addition, Snow Industry, Star City Graphite, Shanshan Co., Ltd., Jiangxi Zhengtuo, Chuangya Power, Dalian Lichang, etc. are also actively promoting the industrialization of silicon carbon anodes.
It is understood that, as early as October 2016, the "New Generation Lithium-Ion Power Battery Industrialization Technology Development" project jointly declared by Ningde Times and the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was launched to develop high-nickel ternary materials as the positive electrode and silicon carbon. Lithium-ion power battery with composite as negative electrode. Not long ago, Ouyang Minggao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced that the specific energy of the high-nickel ternary anode and silicon-carbon anode battery developed by the Ningde era has reached 304Wh / kg and will be put on the market this year.
In 2018, with the special support of the national key research and development program "new energy vehicles", Lishen Battery project team developed a lithium-ion power battery with high specific energy, long cycle life and good safety performance based on the preliminary research of NCA cathode materials. A high-nickel-based anode material; through a variety of technologies such as nano-preparation, nano-dispersion, coating, and pre-intercalation of lithium, a silicon-carbon anode material with high capacity, high efficiency for the first time, and good cycle stability and rate performance has been developed. And the specific energy of the battery cell developed based on this system reaches 303Wh / Kg.
In addition to the field of new energy vehicle power batteries, in the field of energy storage, silicon carbon anode materials will also have better application prospects. At the same time, aerospace, shipbuilding and other fields have also put forward higher energy density and power density requirements for lithium-ion batteries. Nano-silicon carbon materials are also the most promising lithium-ion battery anode materials at this stage, and their application prospects are very broad. .
Obstacles but promising prospects
However, industry insiders said that the popularity of silicon carbon anode materials has been greatly improved, but there are still many obstacles in application.
First of all, during the mass production of the battery, there are still problems such as rapid capacity decay, easy deformation of the battery, and the number of cycles can not meet the requirements. There are not many good silicon carbon anode products and well-used battery manufacturers. Second, the cost performance is not good. If the battery capacity is increased by 5% -10%, the cost of the battery will increase by 20% -30% or even higher. High-nickel ternary silicon-carbon composite materials have always been considered a golden match, but the separator, electrolyte, etc. have the problem of one-to-one matching, and it is still difficult to find a matching electrolyte.
Although the large-scale application of silicon carbon anode materials still has a long way to go, with the gradual application of high nickel NCM811 and NCA ternary batteries, silicon carbon anode materials will usher in a large demand explosion.