Lithium Grid News: Recently, a report published by a well-known forum in China's lithium battery industry shows that with the rapid development of the electric vehicle industry, China has become the world's largest lithium-ion battery producer, and together with South Korea and Japan to dominate the lithium battery market.

However, under the “prosperous” phenomenon, the backwardness of resource development and utilization, the low level of power battery technology, and the blank of battery recycling and reuse system have limited industrial competitiveness. Looking into the future, the development of a new generation of power batteries is underway, and developed countries in Europe and the United States may also enter the industry and pose potential challenges.

Lithium batteries are the mainstream of current power batteries and are closely related to the future development of the new energy automobile industry. Industry experts believe that in the critical period of countries to accelerate the layout of the power battery industry, China, as a power battery manufacturing country, must get rid of the existing bottlenecks, accelerate the standardization system construction, improve the recycling system, and master the breakthrough core technology in order to compete in this competition. Take advantage.

Lack of resources

The lithium battery industry development report (2018) released by the forum pointed out that China's lithium resources are abundant, but the utilization rate is relatively low, and nickel and cobalt resources, which are important materials for power batteries, are scarce and have high dependence on foreign countries.

China's lithium reserves are among the highest in the world, but what is highly mismatched is that the current demand for ore raw materials for processing and production of lithium products in China is highly dependent on imports. According to Zheng Mianping, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the Salt Lake Center of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, the actual external dependence of lithium resources is as high as 70%. The salt lakes of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are rich in lithium resources, but the “magnesium-lithium ratio” in the brine is extremely high, which makes it difficult to separate and extract lithium. Although these regions have initially formed an industrial chain from lithium to lithium batteries in salt lakes , due to factors such as technical limitations and lack of supporting industries, there is a lack of effective docking between upstream and downstream enterprises.

Zhang Yongwei, secretary general and chief expert of China Electric Vehicles 100-members, said that China's electric vehicle industry is developing rapidly. It is expected that the output will reach 10 million units by 2030. By then, the resource supply problem caused by the development of technical bottlenecks will be particularly prominent, which will enable the entire industry chain. The cost pressure has risen sharply.

Analysts believe that the competition of global power battery companies has extended to the upstream materials field, and resources can take the initiative. Chen Qingtai, chairman of the China Electric Vehicle Hundred People's Association, suggested that China should use lithium, nickel and cobalt as strategic resources, attach importance to investigation, evaluation, mining and recycling, further strengthen market supervision, and guide the rational return of prices, thus reducing the risk of resource security. .

Battery recycling is basically blank

According to experts, the power battery eliminated by new energy vehicles still maintains an initial energy of 70% to 80%, and the battery also contains some valuable metal materials. If unreasonable recycling is bound to cause waste.

Chen Qingtai said that China's current power battery recycling technology is still not mature, the acquisition network is still not perfect, the management measures are not sound enough, the support policies are not enough, and the business model and profit model have yet to be explored.

He said that the first vehicle-mounted power battery that China has put into the market has begun to enter the retiring period. The recycling of power batteries and the use of ladders are of great significance to environmental protection. Relevant technical, safety and environmental protection standards should be formulated to study the incentives for the recycling of power batteries. mechanism.

Zhao Xiaoyong, managing director of Beijing Saidemei Resources Reuse Research Institute Co., Ltd., said that China is a country lacking lithium battery raw materials , and recycling is also a kind of protection for resources. He suggested adopting legislation to turn battery recycling into a "must-have" for businesses.

Future lithium battery competition is fierce

The data shows that China, Japan and South Korea have basically dominated the global lithium battery market. Among them, China's power battery shipments reached 38 GWh (GWh), accounting for more than 60% of global shipments, and seven of the world's top ten power battery companies are in China.

However, Zhang Yongwei pointed out that although China is currently leading the production capacity, there is still uncertainty in who will rise and fall in the new round of competition. "If the next generation of battery technology is not accelerated, the competitive landscape will be rewritten."

The current ternary lithium battery and lithium iron phosphate battery have shortcomings such as low thermal decomposition temperature, flammability and explosiveness, and limited space for energy density improvement. In contrast, all-solid-state lithium batteries have gradually gained industry recognition due to their high density and high safety, which may become the trend of battery development in the future.

Japan's new energy industry technology development organization announced that some of the country's automotive, battery companies and academic institutions will jointly research and develop, and strive to fully grasp the technology of solid-state batteries by 2022 ; German Volkswagen Group recently announced that it will invest 100 million US dollars for solid state Battery development and mass production.

The industry believes that Chinese companies have entered the field of solid-state lithium batteries late, and are mainly supported by scientific research institutions or institutions, and the industrialization process is slow. From a global perspective, although European and American companies have lost their position in this round of competition, they are laying out a competitive position for the next stage and are potential strong competitors.

Chen Qingtai said that the most important thing to continuously improve its competitive position is to master the core technology and have the ability to continuously create core technologies. "The key is to condense outstanding talents and maintain sufficient R&D investment. Battery companies must also be supported by the state and the state. Universities and research institutes cooperate to carry out basic research on power batteries."