Recently, Zeng yaoqun, chairman of Ningde times, made a statement about "developing cobalt-free battery" again detonating the discussion about cobalt-free battery in the industry. Experts believe that there is no new material to replace the stabilization effect of cobalt. Only by reducing the amount of cobalt as much as possible can we completely remove cobalt in the next two or three years. At present, more enterprises are laying out nickel-cobalt-manganese-aluminum (NCMA) quaternary lithium battery, and this technical route is to mix part of aluminum elements into the material of nickel-cobalt-manganese ternary battery, and gradually achieve the goal of low cobalt or cobalt-free batteries, the cost reduction after mass production can exceed 30%.
Ningde times says whether there is cobalt battery technology Reserve
Recently, at the 2019 performance online presentation meeting held in Ningde era, some investors asked whether Ningde era had its own cobalt-free battery technology reserve besides lithium iron phosphate battery? Zeng yaoqun replied that Ningde era had its own cobalt-free battery technology reserve. At present, the research and development are progressing smoothly, and it is trying to improve the supply chain, "because it is a brand new and subversive product".
Tesla revealed earlier that the latest "Cobalt-free" battery technology will be announced on "battery Day", and this "Cobalt-free" battery is not a low-density lithium iron phosphate battery. In response, Zeng yaoqun said: "Musk told me that Tesla wants to make its own batteries. As far as I know, their technical route will not have an impact on us. The two sides are jointly discussing how to make the battery better."
At that time, the discussion on cobalt-free batteries once again triggered a heated discussion. At present, the mainstream types of power batteries are divided into lithium iron phosphate battery and ternary lithium battery. Since lithium iron phosphate battery itself does not contain cobalt, the "Cobalt-free" referred to in the industry is usually decobalt in ternary lithium batteries.
Cobalt, as one of the important raw materials of ternary batteries, mainly plays a role in stabilizing the structure. Northeastern Securities pointed out in the research paper that, assuming that in the future, the global sales of new energy vehicles are 50 million each year, and according to the calculation of the cobalt metal content of bicycles of 10kg, the demand for cobalt is about 500,000 tons, at present, the annual mining volume of cobalt metal in the world is less than 150,000 tons.
In ternary lithium battery, according to the different proportions of nickel, cobalt and manganese (NCM), different models are produced. According to the proportion of three elements, 532 models, 622 models, 811 battery, etc. Due to low quantity and high price, reducing cobalt consumption has always been one of the directions of power battery evolution. Therefore, the 811 model of high nickel and low cobalt has become the development trend of ternary lithium battery, and the international mainstream power battery enterprises such as LG Chemical, Panasonic battery, in Ningde era, low cobalt and "Cobalt-free" were all taken as the research and development focus of the next generation of power battery technology.
Mo Ke, president of Zhenli research, told the reporter of China Securities Journal that it is currently impossible to achieve cobalt-free in the true sense from the technical level. "At present, no other new materials can be found to replace the stabilization effect of cobalt, that is to say, it is only possible to reduce the dosage of cobalt, but completely remove cobalt. It is estimated that in the next two or three years, looking around the world, there is no battery factory that can do it."
Exploration of cobalt removal in enterprises
Moke said that the current development direction of ternary materials is to make materials have higher voltage, and to make materials have higher capacity. From the perspective of technology research and development, if cobalt removal is successful, the ternary material nickel cobalt manganese will become the binary material lithium nickel manganese. Lithium nickel permanganate is a kind of high voltage material of 5V level. Compared with the ternary material of 3.7V level, due to the increase of voltage, the electric quantity can also increase accordingly.
"But the biggest problem of lithium nickel manganese material is that there is still no matching electrolyte system. The current lithium hexafluorophosphate electrolyte system will be decomposed because the voltage is less than 5 volts, and the battery will also become invalid." Mo Ke explained.
Therefore, more enterprises are looking for high-capacity materials for technological development. Recently, GM announced its cooperation with LG Chemical in EVDay, planning to mass produce nickel cobalt manganese aluminum (NCMA) quaternary lithium battery in 2021, and its cost can achieve a decrease of more than 30%.
This technical route is to mix part of aluminum into the material of nickel cobalt manganese ternary battery to inhibit the generation of unstable impurities of cobalt. Compared with the current ternary materials 523, 811 and NCA, the nickel content of NCMA Quaternary materials approaches 90%, while the cobalt content further decreases.
In terms of the layout of NCMA battery materials, domestic enterprises mainly include Ningde times, BYD, Guoxuan High-tech, Grimm, rongbai technology and so on. According to the mainstream opinion of NCMA in the industry, the alternative solution of maintaining the content of nickel and cobalt at the present stage is even better than that of NCA at the same level, which mainly adopts the advanced battery of ternary to Quaternary or even more, and gradually achieve the goal of low cobalt or cobalt-free batteries.
Honeycomb Energy, a power battery enterprise developed independently and stripped by Great Wall Motors, recently announced that it would release a new cobalt-free battery category on May 18th. In response, Hao Leiming, the marketing director of honeycomb energy, introduced to the reporter of China Securities Journal that the anode material of the cobalt-free battery of honeycomb energy was researched and developed independently, and its main material was nickel manganese. "Cobalt removal can be completely realized with a cobalt content of 0." She explained that the technical principle could be understood as replacing cobalt with a group of elements similar to cobalt and playing a doping role after removing cobalt, and strive to reduce the proportion of doping to below 7% or even lower.
According to the previous plan of honeycomb energy, cobalt-free battery core products will be further optimized in the material system in May 2020, the system will be finalized in August, and will be mass produced in the second half of 2021. The cost after mass production can be reduced by 10%-15%, the corresponding cost of battery core BOM can be reduced by about 5%, and the materials are not affected by strategic resources.
Tesla battery day conjecture
As the vane of global new energy electric vehicles, Tesla has been suffering from battery costs for a long time, and Musk, the CEO of the company, has always had the idea of "no cobalt. In June 2018, Musk responded that the amount of cobalt used in its batteries was less than 3%, and the amount of secondary batteries would drop to zero.
In fact, in 2012, the usage of cobalt per car on Tesla ModelS was 11kg, while in 2018, when compared with Tesla Model3 of the same size, the usage of cobalt was only 4.5kg. Northeast Securities predicts that by 2025, Tesla's demand for cobalt will drop from 18,200 tons estimated by the current system to about 7,400 tons and reduce the use of cobalt resources by about 11,000 tons under the scheme of high nickel and ultra low cobalt.
On May 15th, Musk said he would postpone the "battery day" originally planned for the third week of May again. Earlier, Tesla revealed in an investor conference call that it would release the company's latest progress in battery technology on "battery day, he also said that" this will be one of the most exciting days in Tesla's history ".
Industry insiders expect that in addition to introducing its battery supply system, they may also announce the independent research and development of lithium batteries and show some of its research results and directions. However, it is expected that stable loading will be done as soon as 2022, for a short period of time, it is mainly for outsourcing.
According to Moko's inference, the information Tesla will release on "battery day" may have the following several possibilities: one is to announce the progress of the battery jointly developed with Panasonic; the second is to announce that it will use lithium iron phosphate batteries; The third is to announce its dry electrode technology.
In February 18 this year, Tesla said it would independently develop new batteries, which may contain zero cobalt. At that time, the market predicted that the cobalt-free battery Tesla referred to was the lithium iron phosphate battery which had been used in the Chinese market for many years. The next day after the news was released, the share price of cobalt plate company suffered a heavy setback. Huayou Cobalt industry and Hanrui Cobalt industry both fell to the limit, while the concept stocks of lithium iron phosphate battery such as BYD rose sharply at the opening, and continued to rise and rise in the following trading days. At present, it is the super capacitor and dry battery technology of Maxwell, the leading enterprise in the field of global Dry Electrode Technology purchased by Tesla in May 2019.
"The main function of dry electrode technology is to simplify the process flow so as to reduce costs. Dry battery itself is not a new technology. Some Japanese battery factories have been doing it all the time, but it is not completely dry electrode, and it also has a "wet" component. Therefore, it is not very clear how mature the current dry electrode technology is. If Tesla's dry electrode can be completely "dry", it is indeed a technological breakthrough." Mo Ke said.
