Japan is committed to creating a "hydrogen society" and popularizing hydrogen fuel-powered lithium batteries before the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, and large Japanese auto industries such as Toyota and Honda are launching hydrogen fuel-powered lithium battery vehicles one after another and promoting them in Japan and European countries. Recently, Honda's new fuel-powered lithium-ion car ClarityFuelCell was officially launched in Japan, and this model with a maximum range of 750 km is priced at about 440,000 RMB.
Now the mainstream of international power lithium-ion battery is still lithium-ion battery, which is better or worse compared with lithium-ion battery? What will be the future development route of lithium-ion battery?
Lithium and hydrogen fuel have their own advantages and disadvantages
Fuel-powered lithium batteries have advantages in higher energy density and fast charging, and can be used as they are charged. "But hydrogen fuel-powered lithium batteries also have disadvantages, such as not being able to accelerate quickly during the sudden acceleration of the car into power, while the energy cannot be recovered." Qiu Xinping, a professor of chemistry at Tsinghua University, told reporters.
The life of hydrogen fuel-powered lithium battery is best in 5000 hours internationally. Ideally, a car with a speed of 100 kilometers per hour can be exercised for 5,000 hours, and the mileage is 500,000 kilometers. "In the use of the process of fuel-powered lithium battery performance will decay, not clean air pollution catalyst will affect the life." Qiu Xinping said.
In terms of safety, the hydrogen fuel-powered lithium battery is also not flawless, it may leak and explode, and the explosion is very powerful. "It is especially important to do a good job of comprehensive and systematic protection, taking into account any harsh conditions conditions and preventing them before they happen." Qiu Xinping further said, "In terms of cost, hydrogen fuel-powered lithium batteries are not cheap, but expensive in terms of key components, such as perfluorinated membranes and platinum catalysts."
Liu Yanlong, secretary-general of China Chemical and Physical Power Industry Association, said in an interview with China Energy News, "Whether in basic research or industrialization, Japanese fuel-powered lithium batteries are developing relatively fast, and although they have dropped as much as 80% compared to 10 years ago, the current price is still on the high side. In addition, the construction cost of building hydrogen refueling stations is not low, and various factors such as transportation cost, construction cost and gas safety have to be considered."
In contrast, although the current lithium-ion batteries have a gap in energy density and fast charging compared with lithium hydrogen fuel-powered batteries, they have an advantage in fast power change. At the same time, with the "energy density of power lithium-ion battery modules to reach 300 watt-hour/kg by 2020" proposed by the government and the industry as the next development goal, all parties are also committed to improving the energy density of lithium-ion batteries.
There is no denying that there are safety concerns about lithium-ion batteries. "However, with the deepening of people's understanding of lithium-ion safety, we are confident that we can solve the problem of lithium-ion battery safety within 3-5 years by protecting and managing the battery in multiple layers, such as battery monomer technology and battery system." Qiu Xinping said.
According to the reporter, lithium-ion batteries in addition to the above hardware performance to be broken through, in the software battery management system (BMS) also lags behind international counterparts. Tesla electric car, for example, its battery management system up to 8,000 lithium-ion batteries in series, to maintain the consistency of the battery, stability and charge and discharge safety, so Tesla's range can reach 350 kilometers. The current domestic battery system can be connected up to 2,000 sections in series. The gap in system integration technology also requires efforts to catch up.
Possible future technical routes
To promote a revolutionary breakthrough in China's power lithium-ion batteries, the Ministry of Industry said in late February that it will invest 500 million yuan and unite nine companies to set up a power lithium-ion battery research institute. So what is the future of China's power lithium-ion battery technology route?
Previously many experts interviewed by reporters believe that, given the long cycle of the battery industry, technology accumulation and breakthroughs to a longer period of time. "Therefore power lithium-ion batteries to achieve a revolutionary breakthrough, it is not difficult. It is expected that within 5-10 years will also be dominated by lithium-ion batteries, to the third generation of lithium-ion battery development."
"In the next 10 years, whether lithium-ion batteries or fuel-powered lithium batteries have opportunities. 5-10 years will also be dominated by lithium-ion batteries, such as lithium-sulfur, lithium-air batteries are the direction of future research, need to work on the anode materials, cathode materials and electrolytes. 20 years later, I personally believe that fuel-powered lithium batteries will become a major trend. " Qiu Xinping said.
"Although the cost of hydrogen fuel-powered lithium batteries has been reduced a lot in Japan and the performance has been improved a lot, there is still a small gap in the domestic technology accumulation from the R&D level." Chen Yong Chong, head of the energy storage technology research group at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Electrical Engineering, told reporters frankly, "Now discussing the future technology development route of power lithium-ion batteries, more or limited to the choice of battery materials, such as lithium iron phosphate, ternary lithium, etc., but this can not solve the problem at the root, should be based on the battery's large structure research, based on a significant increase in safety, a significant reduction in cost, the System cycle life significantly extended on the development of new power lithium-ion batteries."
"The future technology route of power lithium-ion batteries or according to the market, as long as it is safe and fast charging, low cost, long life battery should encourage the development." At the same time, Chen Yong Chong further said, "we have to be based on basic science, see the right direction after continuous research and development, do not be hot and cold, and can not fall with the wind, from technology development to product realization is a cumulative process."
Rapid development of domestic power lithium-ion batteries
In the past two years, as China's new energy vehicles are blowout development, driven by the rapid rise in demand for power lithium-ion batteries. In 2015, for example, the annual cumulative production of new energy vehicles 379,000 units, up four times year-on-year. According to China's chemical and physical power industry association and the companies notice statistics show that the domestic power lithium-ion battery production in 2015 about 16 GWh, is expected to be 20 GWh of new investment production this year and next two years, will reach 32 GWh by the end of 2016.
Corresponding with the explosion of electric vehicles, China has become the world's third largest power lithium-ion battery production. Power lithium-ion battery industry chain has become the most intensive field of fund-raising in 2015, BYD, Sugo, Del Home, Dasan, WinHope Technology and other listed companies have fixed the increase into the lithium-ion battery industry chain, power lithium-ion battery production greatly expanded.
"At present, we are in the process of lithium split, ready to be listed separately." The reporter learned from Tennant Group, "'13th Five-Year Plan' period, Tennant is also working to increase the energy density of lithium-ion batteries to 300-400 watt hours per kilogram. At the same time, it will further improve in charging time and safety."
Meanwhile, international power lithium-ion battery giants have also entered China. In 2015 alone, there were Samsung SDI building a plant in Xi'an, LG Chem in Nanjing and Panasonic in Dalian.
In addition, on January 12, the substandard committee of the Automotive Standards Committee for electric vehicles will finalize and adopt the first national standard for power lithium-ion battery recycling of new energy vehicles in China - "Automotive power lithium-ion battery recycling disassembly specifications" and "Automotive power lithium-ion battery recycling residual energy detection", which marks the power lithium-ion battery recycling in China, the This marks the standardization and standardization of power lithium-ion battery recovery and recycling in China, which brings benefits to the market of new energy vehicles and power lithium-ion batteries.
