Here comes the cobalt-free battery! Honeycomb Energy starts sample car Road Test

SMM: it is learned that recently, Honeycomb Energy successfully completed the first test sample car of cobalt-free battery, and officially carried out road testing.

It is reported that the cobalt-free battery loaded for the first time is the 115Ah product launched by Honeycomb Energy at the online press conference on May 18, with an energy density ≥ 235 Whhand kg and 2500 cycles; this loading matches the VDA355 module.

115Ah cobalt-free batteries will be on the market in June 2021, according to information disclosed at a previous press conference by Honeycomb Energy. "this product is based on the universal cell size design, so it can be carried on most of the new pure electric platforms at present." Honeycomb Energy said.

In May this year, Honeycomb Energy held an online press conference on "Cobalt-Free Future" and officially launched two cobalt-free batteries, making Honeycomb the first company in the industry to launch cobalt-free batteries.

It is understood that in addition to 115Ah's cobalt-free battery loading test, another cobalt-free battery that can meet the endurance 880km is also being tested as planned.

According to Yang Hongxin, president of Honeycomb Energy, as the first company in the industry to land cobalt-free batteries, in the process of R & D and production of cobalt-free batteries, there are three technologies that are the key to breaking through the bottleneck of cobalt-free technology: cation doping technology, single crystal technology and nano-network coating technology.

The first technology: cation doping technology. Honeycomb energy uses two elements with stronger chemical bonds to replace cobalt and is doped into the material. by strengthening the chemical bond to stabilize the oxygen octahedral structure, this technology reduces the mixed discharge of lithium and nickel and greatly improves the stability of the material. and can work stably at a voltage of 4.3-4.35V. This technology can increase the upper voltage of the material, increase the energy density by 40% compared with lithium iron phosphate, and enhance the stability of the material.

The second technology: single crystal technology. In order to add more active materials to the limited shell space, the battery has to be rolled with high strength in the process of electrode fabrication. Compared with polycrystalline materials, single crystal materials have stronger particle strength and more stable structure during rolling, and the compressive strength can be increased by 10 times. It is this stable crystal structure that brings ultra-long service life for cobalt-free materials, and the cell life can be 70% longer than that of polycrystalline high-nickel ternary.

The third technology: nano-network coating technology. Honeycomb Energy adopts nano-network coating technology in the synthesis of cobalt-free materials, and the surface of single crystal is coated with a layer of nano-oxide, which can reduce the side reaction between cathode material and electrolyte. This technology effectively improves the cycle performance of materials under high voltage.

"at present, the monomer energy density of lithium iron phosphate is basically close to the ceiling, and the energy density of the 'cobalt-free battery' we developed is about 40% higher than that of lithium iron phosphate," according to the head of the research and development of cobalt-free battery at Honeycomb Energy. "the energy density of the first 'cobalt-free battery' launched by the company is 235Whshock kg, although the nickel content is not as high as NCM811. However, the energy density is very close to that of NCM811 at the present stage. Under different voltage systems, its energy density is better than that of NCM523 and NCM622.

In terms of safety, sample An of Honeycomb Energy "cobalt-free battery" has been tested by hot box overshoot, short circuit, thermal runaway, heat spread, extrusion, Tackle, including spray test, and the test results show that the safety tolerance is higher than that of ternary battery.

In terms of cost, "because of the realization of cobalt-free cathode materials, the cost of cobalt-free cathode materials is about 15% lower than that of the current mainstream NCM materials." The head of Cobalt-Free Materials of Honeycomb Energy also said, "because there is no cobalt, the price of the material itself will no longer change with the fluctuation of cobalt price, and the price will be more stable, so there is no need to worry about the impact of cobalt price fluctuation."

"the energy density is already shoulder-to-shoulder high nickel ternary battery material, and much higher than lithium iron phosphate, and the cost is about 15% lower than ternary material," said the head of research and development of cobalt-free battery at Honeycomb Energy. The gap in performance cannot be achieved by compromise products.

Earlier this year, the person in charge of Honeycomb Energy revealed in an interview that Honeycomb Energy is currently conducting production testing, debugging and optimization of sample B products, as well as battery package structure design based on sample B products. "after sample B, we will also do the development and verification process of sample C and the complete vehicle, and the timeline plans to launch the product to the market in June next year." It can be seen that its cobalt-free battery is advancing normally as planned. I believe we will soon witness the landing of the industry's first cobalt-free battery, and electric vehicles with cobalt-free batteries will soon be on the road.

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