The capital continues to increase the size of the semi-solid battery is about to be mass-produced and loaded.

The attention of solid-state batteries has skyrocketed since the release of the first 150kWh solid-state battery in January and the news that the ET7 sedan with the battery will have a range of more than 1000 kilometers. Near the end of the New year, this technology, which is regarded as the development direction of the next generation power battery, has brushed a wave of sense of existence. The relevant layout enterprises are not only favored by capital frequently, but also have substantial progress on the road of mass production.

A number of solid-state battery companies have received re-financing

According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 40 automobile companies and power battery enterprises committed to the research and application of solid-state battery technology around the world, many of which are highly sought after by capital. Recently, domestic Huineng technology, Weilan new energy, foreign Factorial Energy and so on have been exposed that they have harvested a lot of financing again.

Huineng announced the completion of a new round of financing of $326 million (2.085 billion yuan) on Oct. 29, with investors including Chunhua Capital, Danfeng Capital and Softbank Corp. China. SkyEye survey shows that this is the fifth round of financing obtained by Huineng Technology.

Huineng said that the financing will be mainly used for Huineng solid-state lithium battery production construction and global production expansion planning, with the aim of enabling the company to expand its plants in Asia, Europe and the United States between 2023 and 2015. to meet the demand of local manufacturing and local supply of high-quality power batteries from mainstream automakers, thereby accelerating the provision of solid-state battery solutions to its strategic partners for new energy vehicles.

It is understood that Huineng Technology was founded in 2006, has launched three solid-state lithium batteries since 2013, and achieved commercial mass production in the field of consumer electronics. In recent years, Huineng began to accelerate the key layout in the field of new energy vehicles.

In 2019, Huineng Technology signed a strategic cooperation agreement with new power car companies such as Xilai Automobile and Aichi. In 2020, Huineng Technology signed a framework agreement with FAW. According to Yang Sikun, founder and CEO of Huineng Technology, in addition to FAW, a number of national prefix car companies and joint ventures have signed framework agreements with the company. "although it is exemplary, these cars will really be put into the market, and the size of each car company is about 3000-5000."

On November 26, the news that Xiaomi Group, Huawei and other strategic institutions would invest in Weilan New Energy was released. According to sources, Huawei, Xiaomi Group and Shunwei Capital signed a decision to invest in Weilan New Energy in August this year. The project is valued at 5 billion yuan, and Weilan New Energy has received an investment of about 500 million yuan.

As the only industrialization platform of solid-state battery technology in the Clean Energy Laboratory of Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Weilan New Energy is the first batch of enterprises to realize mass production of solid-state batteries in China. In August last year, Weilan New Energy built a 200 million watt-hour hybrid solid-liquid solid-state power battery demonstration production line at the solid-state battery industry demonstration base in Liyang, Jiangsu Province. The energy density of its solid-state battery products can reach 270 Whhand kg, and it has taken the lead in large-scale applications in industrial UAV and special fields.

On the foreign side, a few days ago, foreign media reported that Daimler and Stellantis have said that they will make strategic investment in solid-state battery manufacturer Factorial Energy. At present, Factorial Energy is seeking to commercialize its battery technology. A month earlier, Hyundai and Kia signed a cooperation agreement with Factorial Energy to jointly develop and test battery technology for electric vehicles.

Factorial's solid-state technology is reported to have made a breakthrough, solving the key challenges that prevent consumers from adopting electric vehicles on a large scale: mileage and safety, and the first battery prototypes could be tested as early as next year. After reaching a strategic partnership with Factorial Energy, Mercedes-Benz officials said: "the prototype battery will be tested as early as next year and solid-state battery technology will be integrated into the car within five years." Stellantis plans to launch its first solid-state battery technology electric vehicle in 2026.

In addition to the above-mentioned enterprises, Qingtao Energy, Ganfeng Lithium, SolidPower, Quantum Scape, 24m and other domestic and foreign solid-state battery companies have received a lot of financing. The smell of capital has always been the most sensitive, solid-state battery companies are so popular, there must be its advantages.

For a long time, improving energy density and ensuring safety is the core of the development of power battery technology. However, for liquid lithium-ion batteries, which are the mainstream products of automotive power batteries, high energy density and high safety are like fish and bear's paw, and it is almost impossible to have both.

According to the goal put forward in China's "Roadmap of Energy Saving and New Energy vehicle Technology", the energy density target of pure electric vehicle power battery is 400WhCompkg by 2025 and 500Wh/kg by 2030. However, due to the influence of the existing architecture and key materials, the energy density of liquid lithium-ion batteries is generally between 240,240 and 260Wh/Kg, so it is very difficult to break through 300Wh/kg. Undeniably, after nearly a decade of rapid development, liquid lithium-ion batteries have made some progress in the improvement of energy density, but at the same time there are many hidden safety risks.

From the process of battery thermal runaway, the decomposition of SEI and the interaction between positive and negative electrodes are the key factors leading to thermal runaway. Therefore, there is an analysis that lithium-ion batteries are not intrinsically safe, and the more their electrolytes are used, the more dangerous they become. To improve this situation, we need to introduce solid-state electrolytes. "the emergence of solid-state batteries breaks through the limitations of high energy density and high safety." Said a senior analyst at the Global Automotive Research Institute. Compared with liquid lithium-ion battery, solid-state battery uses solid electrolyte instead of liquid electrolyte and diaphragm, which has the advantages of non-flammability, non-corrosion, non-volatilization, non-leakage and so on. At the same time, the solid-state battery with metal lithium as negative electrode matches the high-voltage cathode material, which can further increase the energy density.

Semi-solid battery production is imminent, all-solid state will take 5-10 years.

Compared with the current mainstream liquid lithium-ion power battery technology, there is no doubt about the advantages of solid-state battery in safety and energy density, so it is considered to be an important development direction of the next generation power battery. However, in order to realize the industrialization of this technology, there are still many problems to be solved, such as the low ionic conductivity of solid electrolyte, the increase of impedance of solid-solid contact interface and so on.

Taking into account the many practical difficulties faced by the large-scale mass production of solid-state batteries, as well as the urgent demand for high-safety and high-energy density power batteries for new energy vehicles, as a compromise, the industry regards solid-liquid hybrid batteries as the transition scheme for the development of solid-state batteries.

As the name implies, solid-liquid hybrid battery is a kind of battery form between liquid lithium battery and all-solid lithium battery, that is, semi-solid lithium battery. The difference between it and the all-solid-state lithium battery is that the solid-liquid hybrid battery contains a certain amount of liquid electrolyte, while the all-solid-state lithium battery contains only solid electrolyte and does not contain any liquid electrolyte.

In the view of the industry, in the case of no breakthrough in all-solid-state lithium battery technology, hybrid solid-liquid battery is expected to be compatible with most materials, equipment and processes of liquid lithium battery. Comprehensive balance of safety, energy density, power density, cycle life, high and low temperature and other performance, can take the lead to achieve commercialization. And the recent moves by car companies and the planning progress of battery suppliers indicate that the process of mass production of semi-solid batteries has been accelerated.

In the "Road Motor vehicle Manufacturing Enterprises and products announcement" recently announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (batch 351), Geshi was concerned that mixed solid-liquid electrolyte lithium electricity was unveiled for the first time. According to the announcement information, the type of energy storage device of a pure electric car declared by Dongfeng Automobile is "mixed solid-liquid electrolyte lithium-ion battery". The manufacturer is "Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium Technology Co., Ltd.", which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ganfeng Lithium Industry.

From the declaration diagram of the product and the corresponding model, the pure electric car is Dongfeng Fengshen E70. According to the progress of the declaration, the model is expected to be delivered before the Spring Festival, which means that the semi-solid battery is about to enter the stage of mass production and loading.

It is understood that in July this year, Ganfeng Lithium Industry signed a contract with the Technology Center of Dongfeng Company to jointly carry out the demonstration and operation project of Ganfeng solid-state battery. On December 10, the first batch of Dongfeng E70 equipped with Ganfeng mixed solid-liquid lithium-ion batteries held a test ceremony in Xinyu, Jiangxi Province, and will be put into trial operation in Xinyu before the Spring Festival.

For the mixed solid-liquid lithium-ion battery carried by Dongfeng E70, the relevant person in charge of Ganfeng lithium industry said that the company has realized the loading of mixed solid-liquid lithium-ion battery based on flexible solid diaphragm. On the basis of excellent electrochemical performance, the battery can pass abuse tests that are higher than the most stringent national standards, including acupuncture, extrusion, overcharge, high temperature hot box and so on. The person in charge also said that the group efficiency of the hybrid solid-liquid lithium-ion battery is high, and the module adopts aluminum alloy frame plus lower high-precision seam laser welding technology to reduce redundant structural design and increase the overall grouping rate to more than 86%. Leading the average level of the soft package module industry. At the same time, the company is developing a second-generation all-solid-state battery with an energy density higher than that of 360Wh/kg.

In addition, the ET7 target mentioned at the beginning of the article will start delivery on March 28 next year. Judging from the current technological progress, the previously advertised 150kWh solid-state battery is also a solid-liquid mixed form, but opinions are divided among the battery suppliers.

The first thing that comes to mind is Huineng Technology, which signed a cooperation agreement with Weilai as early as 2019. According to Huineng science and technology planning, it plans to achieve mass production of EV solid-state battery in 2022, and in addition, in terms of capacity layout, Huineng Technology plans to complete the demonstration line of 1GWh in 2021, while promoting the construction of solid-state battery industry park, and from 2022 onwards, several state-owned mainframe plants will be provided with several state-owned mainframe plants to launch the first batch of solid-state battery production vehicles through 2GWh demonstration line, and strive to achieve 50GWh production capacity in 2026.

Weilan New Energy, which has recently received investment from Huawei and Xiaomi, has been accused of being a "supplier of solid-state batteries for Weilai cars." Li Yongwei, deputy general manager of the department, said in an interview with the media in the middle of this year that Weilan New Energy's hybrid solid-state batteries will be loaded in bulk. And Weilan New Energy is building a large-scale 2GWh solid-liquid hybrid solid power battery production line, mainly producing 350-360Wh/kg new energy vehicle power batteries.

Recently, Li Han, chairman of Guoxuan Hi-Tech, said publicly that the company's semi-solid battery layout had made important progress, and revealed that the company's semi-solid battery for domestic high-end pure electric vehicles had a range of more than 1000 kilometers, double that of its first-generation models. After the news was announced, the industry speculated that it could also be ET7. So who is the mysterious supplier behind ET7? It is believed that with the delivery of the new car, it will soon be clear.

In addition, BAIC Langu, which has been in the solid-state battery field for a long time, said on the investor interactive platform on December 13 that the company has now completed the second-generation solid-state cell development, battery system bench test verification and vehicle (ARCFOXT) carrying verification. At the same time, the company's planned third-generation solid-state battery technology plan matches the new model of the Polar Fox brand to develop a solid-state battery with high safety (no fire) and high energy density (cell energy density 360Wh/kg), which is currently in the process of establishing a vehicle project.

It can be expected that with the Dongfeng E70 model equipped with Ganfeng lithium battery put into market trial operation at the end of this year, and the official delivery of Lailai ET7 in March next year, the industrialization wave of semi-solid battery is bound to accelerate. As for all-solid-state batteries, it is generally believed that they will have to wait for 5-10 years. Ouyang Minggao, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that solid-state batteries will really be put into large-scale commercial applications from 2025 to 2030. At present, the upper limit of the specific energy of lithium-ion batteries is about 300 Whtablesheet kg. In 2025, the first generation of all-solid-state batteries with the same specific energy as the existing liquid electrolyte lithium-ion batteries will appear. After 2030, there will be a second generation of all-solid-state batteries with new cathode and cathode materials, and the specific energy will be enhanced to 500Wh/kg.