Jinchuan Group continues to expand the industry chain of new energy battery materials through multi-point efforts.

At the beginning of this century, Jinchuan Group began to plan and deploy in the field of new energy to carry out R & D and reserve of battery material technology. In December 2020, the State Council issued a white paper entitled "China's Energy Development in a New era". Jinchuan Group conforms to the background of global environmental governance on carbon reduction and seizes the new opportunity for the development of "green energy". Further speed up the R & D and business development of battery materials such as ternary cathode materials, lithium battery copper foil and pure nickel strip for battery electrodes. Through a visit to the battery material industry of Jinchuan Group, the reporter found that with the gradual completion of supporting projects in the upstream and downstream of the battery material industry, a battery material industry chain ranging from the exploitation of nickel and cobalt resources to the recycling of waste batteries, from process technology research and development to product certification development, is accelerating to form a closed loop.

According to the data of the information conference held by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers in November 2021, the sales of new energy vehicles in China reached 2.542 million from January to October, an increase of 176.6 percent over the same period last year. The production and sales of new energy vehicles in China has been the first in the world for six years in a row.

In recent years, the rapid development of new energy vehicle industry has led to the rapid development of upstream battery and battery material industry. In June 2021, the General Office of the people's Government of Gansu Province issued the opinions on cultivating and strengthening the New Energy Industry chain, pointing out that it is necessary to focus on the development of key new materials industries such as battery-grade nickel sulfate and ternary precursors.

Seize the development opportunities of the new energy industry and take advantage of the opportunity to promote green and high-quality development. Relying on rich nickel and cobalt resources and mature non-ferrous metal smelting and processing technology, Jinchuan Group develops new energy battery materials industry, focusing on the research, development, capacity expansion and production of battery materials such as ternary precursors and spherical nickel hydroxide. supporting the implementation of a series of industrial upstream and downstream projects, continue to expand the battery material industry chain.

Increase the influence of increasing production by three-yuan guarantee of supply

Walking into the three-yuan precursor production workshop of Lanzhou Jintong Energy Storage Power New Materials Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jinchang Company), one reaction kettle and filter press stand in rows, making a rumbling sound. The shiny green ground reflects the outline of part of the machinery. Not a single worker can be seen at the scene, and there is no material flowing out of the system, and the whole production line seems to be controlled by an invisible hand.

Ding Dongjiu, manager of Jinchuan Science and Technology quality Department, said that Jintong Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Jinchuan Group Lanzhou Jinchuan New Materials Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jinchuan Science and Technology). It has a number of production lines of ternary precursors (front-end products of ternary positive materials for power batteries of new energy vehicles). It has obvious advantages in production technology and equipment, such as automatic integrated control of mass production of ternary precursors, manufacture of precursors with low impurity content, synthesis of ternary precursors with high energy and so on.

In March 2021, the first phase of the 100000-ton power lithium-ion battery ternary precursor project of Jintong Company was completed and put into production. In September, production exceeded 31000 tons, 60 per cent of which were exported directly or indirectly. A project manager of Jintong Company said: "at present, we are expanding and reforming the existing production line, and the production capacity of ternary precursors will be increased by more than 30% after completion."

At the same time, a number of battery cathode material industry supporting projects, such as Jinchuan Group Nickel Refining pressurization system Optimization and upgrading Project, Battery-grade Nickel Sulfate Project expansion and Transformation Project, are speeding up construction. after completion, it will provide a reliable guarantee for the downstream finishing of the industry, high-end products and so on.

Focus on tackling key problems of Ni-MH research and development to improve product competitiveness

Through the high-power optical microscope, a number of shiny light green balls appear in front of us, large and small next to each other, closely arranged.

"these balls are only 10 microns in diameter, thinner than hair, and have excellent fluidity." Gao Wenbin, director of the nodular nickel workshop of Jinchuan Group Powder Materials Co., Ltd., looked at the imaging map of spherical nickel hydroxide under the microscope and introduced it to the reporter.

Spherical nickel hydroxide is the cathode material of Ni-MH battery, which is widely used in the field of civil batteries such as power tools, small UAV and power batteries for new energy vehicles. "the most common is our daily rechargeable No. 5 battery." Gao Wenbin picked up a cylindrical battery on the battery testing line and said.

In 2019, on the basis of the original nodular nickel products, the powder material company successfully developed the cobalt-coated cathode material for new energy battery through a series of technical research, and has been put into mass production through performance testing and customer certification. At present, a variety of cathode materials have been certified by the European Union, with a total annual output of 2800 tons, accounting for about 25% of the domestic Ni-MH battery cathode material market.

"however, the Ni-MH battery related industry is relatively mature, the growth rate of market demand slows down, and the product upgrading power is insufficient, so there is a risk of being replaced." Gao Wenbin told reporters.

In this regard, powder materials companies aim at the new energy storage market, actively cooperate with domestic well-known universities to develop key technologies of new energy storage batteries, and build an integrated platform for industry-university-research of energy storage battery materials. produce a safer, longer life, low-cost and efficient battery, and constantly enhance the competitiveness of the product market.

Towards the "positive pole" to extend the battery material industry chain

In the factory of Jiangsu Nantong Ruixiang New material Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Nantong Ruixiang), more than 2200 kilometers away from Jinchang, ternary precursors from Jintong Company are continuously sent to the battery cathode material production line. After further processing, the battery cathode materials produced here have been sold to some leading battery enterprises at home and abroad.

Nantong Ruixiang is a national high-tech enterprise specializing in the research, production, sales and service of lithium-ion battery cathode materials, and it is also one of the top 10 enterprises in terms of market share of domestic cathode materials. In 2018, Jinchuan Group Lanzhou Science and Technology Park Co., Ltd. invested in Nantong Ruixiang, Jinchuan Group battery material industry chain further extended.

According to Zhao Yunhu, deputy general manager of Ruixiang in Nantong, the overall sales of battery cathode materials will reach more than 25000 tons this year, which is expected to increase by nearly 150% compared with the same period last year. Sales of lithium battery materials have reached almost 1.5 billion watt-hours and can assemble about 500000 hybrid and 200000 all-electric vehicles.

Relying on the resources and smelting advantages of Jinchuan Group, Nantong Ruixiang speeds up the research and development of battery cathode materials and capacity expansion. At present, the production and R & D of ternary cathode materials has covered the full range of 3-series, 5-series, 6-series, 7-series, 8-series and 9-series products, especially in the field of high-power ternary cathode materials and medium-nickel and low-cobalt cathode materials. it has become a benchmark product in the industry. Lithium manganate and several production lines of ternary cathode materials are also under planning and construction, and the production capacity will increase rapidly in the next 2-3 years.

Keep up with the market, R & D and innovation is always on the way.

"technological research and development can't be what it used to be!" Jiang Xiaofeng, director of the Jinchuan Institute of Science, Technology and Materials on the other end of the phone, laments, "the market is rapidly changing, and now new technologies and products will emerge in two or three years."

Driven by the market demand of different applications downstream of the industry, China's lithium-ion battery cathode materials have experienced three stages of development. The first stage is the increase in demand for lithium cobalt driven by consumer batteries; the second stage is the rise of lithium iron phosphate brought about by the rapid growth of the new energy vehicle market; the third stage is the promotion of national policies and the acceleration of the marketization of new energy vehicles for long mileage demand, so that ternary materials gradually become the dominant market demand.

The pressure of new materials and new technologies brought by the iterative updating of downstream products is transmitted to the research and development of battery materials layer by layer, forcing Jinchuan technicians to speed up the pace of research and development. "fortunately, the direction of technological research and development in this field is relatively clear, that is, high energy, high density, fast charging, high safety, and long life." Jiang Xiaofeng added.

Along this direction, Jinchuan Group has experienced many innovations and upgrades of products such as cobalt tetroxide, ternary precursors and ternary cathode materials for lithium cobalt oxide, and established a customer-oriented, efficient and collaborative new product research and development system.

In recent years, Jinchuan Group has taken the lead in the formulation of the national standard for nickel-cobalt-manganese three-element composite hydroxide, the formulation of cobalt tetroxide non-ferrous industry standard and the successful approval of national innovation platforms such as the National Nickel-Cobalt New Materials Engineering Technology Research Center, the National Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for High performance Battery Materials, and the National Engineering Center for Advanced Energy Storage Materials.