At the end of 2018, battery maker 24M raised $ 21.8 million (approximately 150 million yuan) in Series D financing from Kyocera Group and ITOCHU Corporation for its semi-solid lithium-ion battery project. The total fundraising for this project has reached $ 71.8 million (About 490 million yuan). The latest funding will be used for the design and development of new batteries for electric vehicles, as well as for the 24M company to build commercial-scale production plants for its semi-solid battery technology, with plans to start production in 2019 or 2020.
The 24M semi-solid battery is the research and development result of the Taiwan scholar Jiang Yeming during his teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States. It is said that the energy density of this semi-solid lithium battery is between 280-300Wh / kg, and the cost is only three One-half, and the feasibility of 350Wh / kg has been verified in the laboratory, and its future goal is to reach an energy density of 500Wh / kg.
It is reported that the battery reduces the demand for inactive materials (such as copper, aluminum and plastic), which will reduce the battery material cost by 20% and enable more efficient long-term energy storage. The positive electrode body is lithium ferrous phosphate, and the negative electrode route includes densification and silicon addition. The main challenge of the most important dual electrolyte comes from reducing the thickness of the separator to 20-40 microns.