Ganfeng Lithium Industry: the supply capacity of lithium products with a total annual output of not less than 200000 tons of LCE is expected to be formed by 2025.

From September 15 to September 17, the third World New Energy vehicle Congress (WNEVC 2021) was held in Haikou, Hainan Province. Wang Xiaoshen, vice chairman of Ganfeng Lithium Industry, was invited to attend and deliver a speech. Taking Ganfeng as an example, Wang Xiaoshen analyzed how lithium enterprises should match the rapid development of the industry and complete self-upgrading under the spring tide of automobile electrification transformation.

The third World New Energy vehicle Congress is jointly sponsored by the China Association for Science and Technology, the Hainan Provincial people's Government, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Ecological Environment, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Ministry of Transport, the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration, and the National Energy Administration, with the theme of "comprehensively promoting marketization, accelerating cross-industrial integration, and working together to achieve carbon neutrality". Representatives from all walks of life of politics, industry, and research from all over the world are invited to participate in the seminar.

At the theme summit of "key Technologies of Power Battery and Ecological Construction of Green and efficient Industry" held on the 17th, Ganfeng Lithium Industry, as one of the upstream representative enterprises of the new energy vehicle industry, showed the electric vehicle industry chain to the attendees. The responsibility and responsibility of lithium enterprises.

New responsibilities of Lithium Enterprises

In recent years, with the rapid development of new energy vehicle industry, the penetration rate of electric vehicles is increasing. According to Wang Xiaoshen, issues around electric vehicles, such as upstream resource supply, sustainable (ESG) of the supply chain, battery recycling, and future development direction, are receiving extensive attention from the industry.

The first is the supply of raw materials. Since 2021, the vigorous development of the electric vehicle industry has led to an increasing demand for all kinds of raw materials. Different from traditional auto parts, lithium as one of the core raw materials of power battery, its production project involves the development of lithium resources, the process needs to go through exploration, design, construction and other links, and has a longer development and production cycle. it is difficult to match the explosive growth of demand in the short term.

Secondly, Volkswagen's attention to the sustainability of the industry is gradually traced back from downstream car companies to batteries, raw materials, mining and other fields. From labor and water use to environmental and ecological protection, as well as carbon dioxide and pollutant emissions. ESG management is becoming more and more important in the process of resource exploitation and production in the upper reaches of the supply chain.

In addition to the supply of raw materials and its ESG properties, the disposal of decommissioned batteries in the future has also begun to become a hidden danger for the rapid development of the industry. As the battery decommissioning often takes more than 8 years, so the battery decommissioning compared with the popularity of electric vehicles, there is a certain lag, at present does not reflect the seriousness of the problem. However, with the passage of time, more and more retired batteries flow out. As the main body of recycling responsibility, car companies and battery enterprises have an increasingly urgent demand for battery recycling.

Finally, it is the mileage anxiety, safety and other problems that have not been completely solved in the electric vehicle industry. The problem is divided into two parts, one is how to strike a balance between the two, and the other is how to ensure that the industrial application can be realized quickly after a technological breakthrough, and that it will not be "stuck" by practical problems such as the shortage of raw materials.

What can lithium enterprises do?

As the demand of downstream car companies and battery factories becomes more and more diversified, lithium enterprises should give full play to their own advantages, solve more problems for them, and promote the development of the industry-- not just product sales.

Give full play to the advantages of enterprises and stabilize market supply

Producing more products, ensuring supply and stabilizing prices are the top priorities of lithium enterprises at present. Over the past five years, Ganfeng has continuously increased the production capacity of lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide and other products, and sought high-quality resources overseas. According to the plan, Ganfeng will form a lithium product supply capacity with a total annual output of not less than 200000 tons of LCE by 2025, and the Cauchari and Mariana lithium salt lake projects in Argentina and the Sonora lithium clay project in Mexico, which are under construction, will all be put into production by 2025.

"Gan Feng has been engaged in the lithium industry for more than 20 years and has rich experience in project construction and management," Wang Xiaoshen said. "what we need to do now is to replicate the advantages of domestic project construction in overseas projects, realize the rapid construction and commissioning of projects, increase the supply of upstream resources, balance market supply and demand, so as to stabilize product prices and promote the sound development of the industry."

Adhere to the ESG strategy and provide green products

If the production process is not green, the energy transformation is meaningless. The transformation of automobile electrification is one of the key ways to achieve the goal of "double carbon". Only when the complete electric vehicle supply chain is kept low-carbon and environmentally friendly, can we really ensure the effectiveness of carbon emission reduction.

Ganfeng always adheres to green mining and low-carbon operation. Sunshine evaporation is the main extraction process in the process of salt lake mining. The energy in the production process comes from the electricity of photovoltaic power stations, and water resources that do not meet the human drinking standards are selected for production. Water resources are collected and recycled after evaporation, and ecological reserves are set up. In the production process, the production process and equipment are optimized to reduce emissions, photovoltaic panels are set up in the plant to increase the proportion of clean energy, and by-products are reused.

Create an one-stop solution from product to recycling

Through battery recycling, on the one hand, various recyclable metals in batteries can be extracted efficiently to help automobile companies and battery factories solve the problem of decommissioned battery treatment by reducing carbon emissions; on the other hand, these recycled raw materials can be effectively used for processing to provide green recycled products with unique Ganfeng characteristics, which can not only solve the problem of raw material supply, but also help downstream enterprises to build a more sustainable supply chain.

Ganfeng cycle was established in 2016 and has been incorporated into the industry standard conditions for the comprehensive utilization of waste power batteries for new energy vehicles issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. At present, Ganfeng has formed a complete cycle from lithium compounds to lithium batteries to recycling into compounds through chemical industry, battery and recycling plates. Downstream enterprises can enter in any link and obtain cleaner product attributes through Ganfeng's recycling ecology.

Layout the future

Make reserves of technology and materials for the development of the industry

Solid-state battery, which takes into account both energy density and safety, is one of the development directions of the electric industry in the future.

Ganfeng set up a solid-state team in 2016 to do technical research and development and reserve to promote product iteration; on the other hand, Ganfeng began to improve the production capacity and deep processing capacity of lithium metal, the core material of solid-state battery, in recent years. It is hoped that when the solid-state battery technology is mature and popularized on a large scale in the future, it can provide sufficient metal lithium negative electrodes to meet the technical requirements for the industry.

At the same time, metal and chemical plates are also producing and developing lithium foils, lithium powders, lithium compounds and other materials suitable for lithium replenishment, which are used to solve the energy density problem of power batteries.

From traditional lithium product supply to today's recycling and cutting-edge layout, Ganfeng lithium industry is undergoing a transformation from a simple product seller to a solution provider.

"about five or six years ago, we were called 'lithium supermarket' by our counterparts in the industry because we can provide the most comprehensive series of lithium products. Now, on the basis of 'lithium supermarket', we have added battery, recycling, solid state and other directions." Wang Xiaoshen said, "over the years, Gan Feng has always adhered to his original mind. We will continue to focus on 'lithium' to solve more problems and contribute to energy transformation for the electric vehicle industry and the new energy industry. "