How much do you know about lithium battery cathode materials? 1. Research background
In recent years, my country’s double harvest of new energy vehicle production and sales has driven the rapid development of the entire upstream and downstream industrial chain, especially the rising demand for power dimethyl sulfoxide batteries. Since power batteries account for about 30-40% of the manufacturing cost of new energy vehicles, in order to make new energy vehicles more price-advantageous and form sufficient market competitiveness, the cost of power batteries must be reduced. Among the costs of power batteries, the cost of cathode materials accounts for more than 40%, so how to reduce the cost of cathode materials has become key.
How much do you know about lithium battery cathode materials? 2. Comparison between lithium iron phosphate and ternary materials
Among the cathode materials, the most commonly used materials are lithium cobalt oxide, lithium manganate, lithium iron phosphate and ternary materials (polymers of nickel, cobalt and manganese). At present, foreign-funded Japanese and Korean companies mainly use ternary battery materials that are indeed ahead of Chinese companies in terms of overall technology. However, in my country’s market application, lithium iron phosphate batteries have the upper hand over ternary material batteries. Last year, the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate was as high as 20 Gwh, accounting for 73%, while the installed capacity of ternary material batteries was only 6.3 Gwh, accounting for only 22%.
However, from a technical perspective, the controversy over the battery route continues. Will lithium iron phosphate or ternary material batteries play the leading role in the future?
From the perspective of energy density, ternary batteries do have an advantage over lithium iron phosphate. Foreign companies represented by Tesla, Samsung, and LG use ternary materials; and lithium iron phosphate batteries have made great progress in technology in recent years. Large, the specific energy is close to that of ternary material batteries. Domestic automobile giant BYD uses lithium iron phosphate materials. According to authoritative data, the specific energy of ternary material batteries is 160-200wh/kg, and that of lithium iron phosphate batteries is 120-150wk/kg. However, some experts said that the specific energy is not absolute. The specific energy of lithium iron phosphate batteries can also be reached to 160wh/kg, but other data must be compromised. Therefore, power battery data must be based on market demand. From a cost point of view, lithium iron phosphate has the advantage. The raw materials of ternary material batteries require precious metals, and the price is relatively high, which will be difficult to reduce in the future. However, the raw materials of lithium iron phosphate batteries are relatively stable in price, and may be even more expensive in the future. Amplitude reduced. Moreover, ternary materials are mainly supplied by foreign capital, so they are not included in the scope of national subsidies. The cost is definitely higher than that of lithium iron phosphate. From the perspective of safety, lithium iron phosphate is also more advantageous. Ternary materials are made of three kinds of polymers: nickel, cobalt and manganese. They decompose when reaching a certain temperature. Ternary lithium materials will decompose at a lower temperature of about 200 degrees, while lithium iron phosphate materials will decompose at about 800 degrees. Moreover, the chemical reaction of ternary lithium materials is more intense, releasing oxygen molecules, and the electrolyte burns rapidly under the action of high temperature, causing a chain reaction. To put it simply, ternary lithium materials are more likely to catch fire than lithium iron phosphate materials. However, it should be noted that we are talking about materials, not batteries that have become finished products. At the beginning of this year, the country issued regulations to suspend (suspend) the use of ternary material batteries in passenger cars, indicating that in the short term, the policy level does not allow the use of ternary materials in the passenger car field, which illustrates the country’s direction.
However, lithium iron phosphate batteries have a fatal shortcoming, which is poor low-temperature performance. Even nanonization and carbon coating do not solve this problem. Studies have shown that if a battery with a capacity of 3500mAh is operated in an environment of -10°C, after less than 100 charge and discharge cycles, the power will decrease sharply to 500mAh, and it will basically be scrapped. This is indeed not a good thing for the comprehensive national conditions of our country, which has a vast territory and indeed has relatively low temperatures in winter. In addition, the preparation cost of materials and the manufacturing cost of batteries are high, the battery yield is low, and the consistency is poor. This is also an important reason why the endurance of many pure electric vehicles cannot reach the nominal value. Therefore, we can see that many domestic new energy vehicles (whether pure electric or hybrid electric), or some relatively cheap new energy vehicles, choose lithium iron phosphate batteries for different reasons. It can be said that the use of lithium iron phosphate batteries has an indelible foundation for the mass production and promotion of new energy vehicles.
So what is the current usage of these two batteries? Let’s focus on one set of data. In November last year, the installed capacity of electric buses with lithium iron phosphate batteries accounted for 64.9%, while the installed capacity of ternary lithium batteries was only 27.6%. On the contrary, in the pure electric passenger car market, the installed capacity of ternary lithium batteries exceeded 76% in November last year. In the past two years, the production and sales of commercial vehicles, including buses, have grown faster than passenger cars. This also explains the main reason why the country puts safety first. However, as the technology matures, passenger cars The future market space for cars is still huge.
How much do you know about lithium battery cathode materials? 3. Introduction and development status of lithium carbonate
Among the raw materials of lithium iron phosphate, the main ones are ferrous oxalate, iron oxide red, iron phosphate, lithium dihydrogen phosphate, ammonium dihydrogen phosphate and lithium dihydrogen phosphate. Among them, lithium carbonate accounts for nearly 30%, and lithium carbonate is made from mineral hydrogen carbonate. It is refined from sodium resources. The reserves in nature are very limited. It is extremely regional and scarce. It is a scarce resource. Therefore, in the new energy vehicle industry chain, lithium carbonate resources are��The strategic importance is particularly prominent.
Currently, the country with the richest lithium resources in the world is Chile, with 72% of the resources, followed by China, with 13%. Enterprises that produce lithium carbonate on a large scale must have the right to exploit salt lake resources with relatively rich lithium resource reserves, which makes the industry have very high resource barriers; in addition, the main raw material of lithium carbonate is salt lake brine (the ore method has a very small global production capacity due to high costs ), since the vast majority of salt lakes around the world are high magnesium and low potassium, the process of purifying and separating lithium carbonate from high magnesium and low potassium old brine is very difficult. Previously, these technologies were only in the hands of a few companies, which made lithium carbonate The industry has technical barriers. Therefore, the global oligopoly pattern of the lithium carbonate industry has long been established. It is understood that the three giants, SQM of Chile, FMC of the United States, and Chemmetal of Germany, dominate more than 70% of the world’s lithium carbonate production capacity.
my country’s Tibet has the richest mining resources, with a conservative estimate of 2 million tons of lithium carbonate reserves, a production capacity of 2,600 tons in 2008, and a long-term plan of 20,000 tons. According to the purity, lithium carbonate can be divided into industrial grade 98~99%, pharmaceutical grade 98.5%, battery grade 99.5%, and high purity grade 99.99~99.999%. Domestic manufacturers mainly produce lithium carbonate at the industrial level, and battery grade production capacity accounts for 1% of the total production capacity. 1/3.
Currently, domestic companies producing lithium carbonate are mainly concentrated in six companies: Tibet Mining, CITIC Guoan, Western Mining Group, Qinghai Salt Lake Group, Tianqi Lithium Industry and Ganfeng Lithium Industry. However, the first four companies are limited to industrial-grade lithium carbonate. Battery-grade lithium carbonate is controlled by Tianqi Lithium and Ganfeng Lithium. Among them, Tianqi Lithium has the most mature technology and is the industry standard setter, accounting for about 60% of the domestic share. market share and some are exported. The following will briefly introduce Tianqi Lithium and Ganfeng Lithium.
