Interview with He Xiangming, Director/Researcher of Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology and Research Office of New Energy and Materials Chemistry, Tsinghua University
【CCN】 The domestic lithium battery industry is booming alongside the new energy vehicles development. What are the new demand trends in the field?
【He Xiangming】 There will probably be the following trends: First, 3C electronic products. Given the increasing number of functions of smart phones, demand for electricity is also rising. Customers’ needs for fast charging and long standby time will lead to higher requirements on positive and negative materials, electrolytes and diaphragms.
The second is the electrical vehicles, which we are quite familiar with. Positive electrode materials such as high nickel materials, negative electrode materials such as silicon carbon negative electrodes, including diaphragms, electrolytes, current collectors, aluminum-plastic packaging films, etc., have developed rapidly in recent years.
The third is energy storage battery. Under the carbon peak and neutrality target, energy storage is a must for any energy route. Hence, its demand growth far outpaces that of electrical vehicles. With the development of window power and photovoltaic power generation, household energy storage, micro-grid energy storage, etc. will have great development potential in the future, which will drive a substantial increase in the demand for phosphate cathode materials, such as lithium iron phosphate and lithium iron manganese phosphate. An expected increase in demand of about 100 kt/a lithium iron phosphate will drive the demand for its raw materials, such as phosphoric acid, iron sulfate, and ammonia possibly by million tons in next three to five years. These are relatively high value-added chemical products, and that’s why many traditional chemical companies have recently entered the industry.
Fourth is the hybrid battery. This will also lead to the development of some new battery materials, such as hard carbon and soft carbon.
To sum up, lithium battery and its raw material industry will keep a high compound annual growth rate of 30-50% in quite a long period of time.
【CCN】 What challenges will the lithium battery face under the carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals?
【He Xiangming】 There will be two major challenges:
First is the environment. From the raw material aspect, the lithium battery industry is more inclined to traditional chemical and discharges “three wastes”, which needs solving by technological progress.
The second is resource. For example, domestic cobalt and lithium resources are relatively limited, but this is not the bottleneck of industrial development. However, there will be many opportunities in the recycling of waste batteries. Many companies have begun to deploy and China also attaches great importance to this.
【CCN】 What other problems facing the development of the domestic lithium battery materials? Whether they can realise independent supply and are there any technology “stuck neck” issues?
【He Xiangming】 It is quite clear that there is no "stuck neck" technology problem, and the entire industry chain of lithium batteries has been in our own hands so far. Of course, for some key materials, such as the packaging films and diaphragms of soft packs, domestic materials cannot completely replace imported materials, and they cannot be matched in terms of quality, but they have reached the level of replacement. If it is "stuck", we can completely use domestic materials for substitute, it is just like the difference between 95 points and 100 points. But we do need to further increase our R&D efforts.
【CCN】 In recent years, the development of traditional lithium iron phosphate batteries has surpassed that of ternary lithium batteries. Which one do you expect will dominate in the future?
【He Xiangming】 In the past, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) provided subsidies to enterprises, which met specific energy index. At that time, only ternary lithium batteries could meet this index. Since the subsidies have gradually been declined, the competitiveness of products mainly depends on economics.
On the other hand, technological breakthroughs significantly raised the specific energy of lithium iron phosphate in the past two years. The specific energy was only 100Wh/kg when we made lithium iron phosphate 20 years ago and has already reached 160Wh/kg. In addition, the cost of lithium iron phosphate is lower than that of ternary batteries, so it is naturally be preferred by customers.
These two types of batteries may have their own strengths and the market will continue to be subdivided. Each application or each vehicle may have different choices, so the relationship between the two is not replacement but complementary. In terms of energy storage, lithium iron phosphate has an absolute advantage. In the future, more than 90% of energy storage batteries will be lithium iron phosphate/graphite system batteries.
【CCN】 Are there any improvements in the safety of lithium batteries for vehicles in recent years?
【He Xiangming】 Safety is indeed a problem of concern and poses great challenges in lithium battery manufacturing, application and R&D. Our research group has been involved in battery safety research since 2005. From a technical point of view, the occurrence of battery safety accidents is actually largely unrelated to the battery, because the battery exists in the system when it is used, many security risks are system-level problems.
Generally speaking, as for electric vehicles, the safety of lithium batteries has been greatly improved in recent years, and it is acceptable. More safety problems exist in electric bicycle batteries produced by small enterprises. But the situation is improving after government’s strengthened management. The challenges facing lithium batteries include battery life, range and fast charging, and these areas require further technological progress.
(China Chemical News (CCN) is the Sister magazine of CCR. It is a comprehensive chemical journal in Chinese and also belongs to CNCIC. )
