Aluminum foil is a key material in the positive electrode of lithium batteries. According to the lithium battery industry data, the amount of aluminum foil for 1GWh lithium batteries is about 600-800 tons. Statistics from the Research Department of the Power Battery Application Branch show that in 2018, the total installed capacity of new energy vehicles in China was 56.89GWh, so the corresponding amount of aluminum foil used was about 34,000-46,000 tons. With the rapid development of the lithium battery market, the industry expects that the lithium battery aluminum foil consumption will reach about 80,000 tons by 2020.
It is understood that lithium battery aluminum foil can be divided into power battery foil, consumer battery foil, energy storage battery foil, of which power battery foil currently has the largest demand, accounting for more than 50%, and the consumer battery aluminum foil market is basically saturated. Industry analysis believes that the future demand for aluminum foil for power batteries will further increase, and aluminum foil for energy storage batteries will gradually develop its strength.
A few days ago, SDNS Aluminum announced that the company's holding subsidiary, Aluminum Rolling Company, plans to invest in the construction of a high-performance high-end aluminum foil production line project with a total investment of 453 million yuan. After completion, it will produce 21,000 tons of high-end aluminum foil, including high-performance power battery foil and Digital consumer battery foil 16800 tons.
It is reported that another aluminum foil giant, GDDY Aluminum , started the construction of the Ruyuan Fine Foil Phase III factory this year, constructing a high-precision aluminum foil new material project with an annual output of 40,000 tons, mainly producing battery aluminum foil for new energy vehicles. After being completed and put into production, Ruyuan Fine Foil can reach an annual output of 120,000 tons of high-end aluminum foil. Earlier, GDDY Aluminum said that it planned to strengthen cooperation with UACJ, Japan's largest aluminum foil manufacturer, and the joint venture company Ruyuan Fine Foil would invest less than 600 million yuan for the construction of aluminum foil for lithium batteries and other projects.
Because of the promising market prospects for lithium battery aluminum foil, leading domestic aluminum foil industry companies, JSDS New Materials, the main air-conditioning aluminum foil business, will also focus on the lithium battery field. As early as last year, JSDS New Materials disclosed in the prospectus that about 600 million yuan of funds raised from the IPO will be used for aluminum foil projects for power battery electrodes. The company will add a production line of 40,000 tons of battery light foil And battery coating foil production line with an annual output of 10,000 tons.
Earlier, HNMT Aluminum stated on the interactive platform that the company's battery foil and electronic foil accounted for more than 20% of all aluminum foil products, and it has been increasing year by year. The company's aluminum foil production and sales in 2018 are expected to reach 100,000 tons .
It is understood that the production of lithium aluminum foil requires state-of-the-art technology. It must be fragmented only once when the positive and negative electrode materials of the battery are adsorbed. It will only be broken once if the entire lithium battery production line is broken. Therefore, A aluminum foil company usually do not dare to produce the lithium battery aluminum foil if they have no right technology ready..
At present, the overall level of the domestic battery aluminum foil processing industry's technology and technical equipment still lags behind the international advanced level. There are many low-value-added products and few high-value-added products. Most companies are small in scale and lack technological innovation capabilities. Due to high technical barriers, the current global manufacturers of aluminum foil for power lithium batteries are mainly concentrated in Japan and South Korea, mainly Japan's Toyo Aluminium and Hitachi Metals.
According to Battery China.com, in addition to SDNS Aluminum, GDDY Aluminum, JSDS New Materials and HNMT Aluminum, there are also Aluminium foil suppliers such as Yongjie New Materials, Fulaishun, Hangzhou Wuxing, Huaxi Aluminum, Sifangda, Zhongnan Aluminum,Shanghai Alcoa, and Zhenxin Foil Electronics planning for the lithium battery aluminum foil industry, but only a few manufacturers have high technical indicators.
In recent years, with the rapid development of lithium battery technology, lithium aluminum foil has been reduced from 16um to 14um in previous years, and then to 12um. Now some battery manufacturers have mass-produced 10um aluminum foil.
It is reported that SDNS Aluminum has realized batch supply of 12μm-thick battery foil and is developing 10-9μm products. As for light and ultra thin aluminum foil, domestic companies still mainly import from Japan, South Korea, Germany and other countries, and there are fewer domestic companies that can produce. Once they are successfully put into production, they will have an import substitution advantage.