Benefiting from the rapid advancement of the global automotive electrification process, the demand for lithium battery anode materials is showing rapid growth. Previous industry organizations predicted that the global demand for power battery anode materials will be about 280,000 tons in 2020; by 2025, China's power battery demand will reach 310GWh, and the corresponding demand for negative electrode materials will reach 260,000 tons. The market space is huge.
Graphite anode production accelerated
Pohang Chemical recently said that the electric vehicle secondary battery market is expected to grow from 194GWh in 2020 to 366GWh in 2023. Therefore, the demand for artificial graphite anode materials will also increase dramatically, and it is necessary to expand production capacity. Based on the output in 2023, Pohang Chemical plans to expand 105,000 tons of natural graphite anode materials, 16,000 tons of artificial graphite, and 90,000 tons of positive and negative electrode materials to increase global market share.
According to Korean media reports, Pohang Chemical decided to invest 217.7 billion won (about 180 million US dollars) to build a new artificial graphite anode material factory. The new material plant is located in the Blue Valley National Industrial Park in Pohang, South Korea. It is expected to produce 16,000 tons per year and supply approximately 360,000 50kWh electric vehicles. Construction of the plant started this year and is scheduled to be completed in 2023.
It is reported that the negative electrode material is the main body for storing lithium when the lithium battery is charged, accounting for about 10% -15% of the cost of the lithium battery. At present, graphite materials are the mainstream of lithium battery anode materials, which can be divided into natural graphite and artificial graphite. Due to raw materials and process characteristics, the internal structure of artificial graphite anode materials is more stable than natural graphite products. In addition, it has a long life and facilitates fast charging. From a global perspective, Japanese and Chinese companies have always dominated the artificial graphite anode material market.
Since the beginning of this year, Chinese materials companies have also been moving continuously. At the end of March, Pu Tailai plans to build a “graphite project with an annual output of 50,000 tons of lithium ion battery anode materials” in Wulanchabu City, Inner Mongolia. The total investment of this project is 1.281 billion yuan and the construction period is two years. Pu Tailai said that the project will achieve full coverage of the company's anode material processing and production processes, integrate production, reduce production costs, and improve product competitiveness.
Prior to this, Zhongke Electric stated that the company initially expected to form a capacity of 40,000-50,000 tons of anode materials by the end of 2020. At the same time, at present, the company has built a 10,000-ton graphitization capacity in Guizhou Grete, and is currently building an additional 10,000-ton graphitization capacity, striving to put it into operation in the first half of 2020. The construction of main capacity facilities has basically been completed. In addition, the first-phase project of Hunan Chenyu Fuji New Energy Technology Co., Ltd.'s 20,000 tons / year lithium-ion battery anode material project was completed and put into production at the beginning of this year.
According to the statistics of the Research Department of the Power Battery Application Branch, the installed capacity of power batteries for new energy vehicles in China is about 62.2GWh in 2019, an increase of 9.3% year-on-year. The growth of the power battery market has driven the increase in demand for upstream materials. In 2019, the output of domestic lithium battery anode materials is about 250,000 tons, of which the artificial graphite market accounts for more than 75%. With the development of the industry in the future, the market scale will also expand substantially.
From the perspective of the market structure, the Open Source Securities Research Report pointed out that the domestic anode material industry is highly concentrated and presents a "three major and five minor" competitive landscape. The "three majors" refer to Bettray, Shanshan and Zichen Technology, respectively. "Five small" refers to Kaijin Energy, Zhengtuo Energy, Shenzhen Snow, Hunan Star City, Xiangfenghua. The competitive landscape of the anode material market will focus on competition among the leaders, the low-end production capacity will be gradually cleared, companies with core technology and advantageous customer channels will gain more market share, and market concentration will be further improved.
Silicon carbon boosts energy density
With the development of lithium battery technology, the upgrade of anode material products is an inevitable trend, and the upgrade of graphite anode system to silicon-based anode system is the main direction. Among a variety of new anode materials, silicon has an ultra-high theoretical specific capacity (4200mAh / g, 10 times higher than traditional graphite materials) and a lower delithiation potential, and because its voltage platform is higher than graphite, it is charging It is more difficult to cause lithium ion precipitation on the surface, and the overall safety performance of the battery is better. It is the most practical choice to replace the carbon-based negative electrode of the lithium ion battery.
It is understood that the specific capacity of silicon carbon anode materials can reach several times that of natural graphite electrodes and artificial graphite electrodes, and its application in lithium batteries will greatly increase the upper limit of energy density. This new material has been used by the global new energy car star Tesla, and its model Model 3 power battery uses silicon carbon anode material.
At present, many domestic material companies are actively deploying silicon-carbon anodes. Bettray, Shanshan, Jiangxi Zichen, Shenzhen Snow, Zhongke Electric, Jiangxi Zhengtuo, Chuangya Power, Dalian Lichang, etc. are all active. Promote the industrialization of silicon carbon anodes. Among them, Shanshan's high-capacity silicon alloy anode material has been industrialized, which can meet the 300wh / kg performance requirements of new energy passenger vehicles, and has been supplied to CATL.
In addition to CATL, at present domestic battery-related enterprises such as Lishen Battery, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, BYD, BAK Power, Wanxiang A123, and Weihong Power are accelerating the R & D and trial production of silicon-carbon anode systems. The high-nickel ternary + silicon carbon composite material has always been considered as a gold match. At present, the high-nickel ternary cell developed by Guoxuan Hi-Tech and Lishen Battery uses silicon-carbon material for the negative electrode, and the energy density can reach 300Wh / kg.
It is not difficult to conclude that as the preparation process of silicon-carbon anodes and the technologies mastered by battery manufacturers for high-nickel systems gradually mature, silicon-carbon anodes will usher in a broader market in the future.