Posco and Posco Chemical of the Korea Iron and Steel Group have set up a special research center to develop battery materials with the support of the entire group. The move underscores that Posco is actively nurturing battery materials for electric vehicles as a key point for the next industry growth.
Pohang Iron and Steel and Pohang Chemical recently held a ceremony to open a research center in a laboratory at the Pohang Institute of Industrial Science and Technology (RIST) in the Southeast Industrial Port. The center will initially be managed by 84 researchers from Pohang Institute of Industrial Science and Technology and Pohang Chemical, and more staff will be recruited later.
The center will actively carry out joint research with domestic and foreign research institutions to ensure that it gains a competitive advantage in the field of secondary battery materials. The project will be equipped with facilities for developing high-capacity positive and negative electrode products, new battery material technologies, and key material technologies for next-generation batteries. In addition, the center will establish related facilities for evaluating battery production performance and actively respond to various business needs.
In fact, Posco has already invested heavily in lithium-ion battery materials. In February last year, POSCO decided to purchase battery-grade lithium from Pilbara Minerals, Australia. The two companies will jointly build a plant to produce 30,000 tons of lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate per year from 2020. ; In August of the same year, Posco signed another US $ 280 million agreement with the Australian Galaxy Resources Mining Company to acquire the latter's mining rights to produce lithium materials in the Hombre Muerto salt lake in Argentina; three months later, Posco has completed the upgrade and reconstruction of a plant with an annual output of 24,000 tons of lithium-ion battery cathode materials, and broke ground to build a plant with an annual output of 50,000 tons of anode materials. "Pohang Chemical will gain 20% of the global negative electrode material market share and achieve a revenue goal of 17 trillion won in the next 12 years."
It can be clearly seen that South Korea has accelerated the deployment of the battery field in the past two years, and the cancellation of China ’s power vehicle “white list” also indicates that Japanese and South Korean power battery companies have greater ambitions to enter the Chinese market. Battery factories have ambitious ambitions. In the future, companies in various countries will be more fierce in the robbing of battery resources, and overseas markets have become the "fragrant incense" of battery companies in the world, especially China, Japan and South Korea.