In just two months, international copper prices experienced a roller-coaster ride from a sharp rise to a steep fall, potentially posing a "crisis" for the lithium battery industry.
In March this year, global copper prices surged, primarily due to traders "frantically" stockpiling to mitigate the potential impact of anticipated tariff hikes. Additionally, the widening price spread between the London Metal Exchange and the New York Mercantile Exchange stimulated cross-market arbitrage, leading to an imbalance in copper supply and a spike in prices.
In April, the US announced so-called "reciprocal tariffs" but included copper in the exemption list, causing a sharp decline in related stockpiling demand and a continuous drop in copper prices for several days. However, since April 9, copper prices have rebounded significantly. This highlights structural imbalances in the global copper supply chain, high sensitivity to trade policies, and insufficient flexibility.
As one of the world's important industrial metals, the sharp fluctuations in copper prices could also have a significant impact on downstream industries.
Market-wise, geopolitical risks in major copper-exporting countries have intensified; the ongoing trade war and uncertain tariff policies have increased the uncertainty of copper prices, thereby affecting downstream companies' copper inventory management strategies and potentially leading to a sudden increase in cost pressures.
Both traditional and emerging industries in China have a robust demand for copper. For example, in the lithium battery manufacturing process, copper foil, as the anode current collector, is one of the key materials. With the rapid development of China's lithium battery industry, the demand for copper continues to rise.
To alleviate the imbalance in copper resource supply and the sharp price fluctuations, lithium battery material companies in China have been continuously developing and promoting composite current collector technologies and products in recent years.
Composite current collectors adopt a "metal-polymer-metal" sandwich structure, divided into composite copper foil current collectors (applied to lithium battery anodes) and composite aluminum foil current collectors (applied to lithium battery cathodes), effectively reducing the use of copper/aluminum, further enhancing battery safety and energy density, and lowering material costs.
Notably, recently, Advanced Materials Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (referred to as "AMTech"), a top-tier enterprise in composite current collectors, officially started the construction of its annual 1 billion m² new-type high-safety composite current collector industrialization project in Neijiang, Sichuan.
According to reports, the project has a total investment of approximately 5 billion yuan, covering about 310 mu, and is planned to be constructed in three phases, with the first phase expected to be completed and trial production to begin by the end of this year.
Once the project reaches full production, its annual output value is expected to exceed 8 billion yuan, and the products can meet the material demand for about 100GWh of power, 3C, and ESS lithium-ion battery production, driving the coordinated development of over a hundred upstream and downstream supporting enterprises.
Prior to this, AMTech also completed a B1 round of financing worth hundreds of millions of yuan, led by the Sichuan Sub-fund of the National Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrading Fund and the Sichuan Regional Collaborative Fund. The related funds will mainly be used for its industrialization, product R&D, and market expansion to further meet the global lithium battery market's demand for high-safety composite current collector upgrades and replacements.
Thus, AMTech has become the first material company in the industry to receive investments from the National SME Development Fund, the National Green Development Fund, and the National Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrading Fund, indicating that its technological potential and strategic value have gained continuous recognition from national-level capital.
It is worth mentioning that as a new-type current collector material, composite current collectors face extremely high barriers in manufacturing processes and application technologies, and companies with strong R&D capabilities and technological accumulation are expected to seize market opportunities first and establish competitive advantages.
01
Analysis of Challenges in Composite Current Collectors
Lithium batteries have extremely stringent requirements for composite current collectors, needing to meet multiple aspects such as electro-thermal-mechanical properties, interface properties, safety characteristics, durability, and stability.
Only by overcoming numerous process challenges and meeting the above requirements can composite current collectors further satisfy the demands of lithium electrode piece coating, rolling, die-cutting, high-temperature baking, welding, and other electrode piece processing, ultimately achieving high safety, high energy density, high C-rate charge/discharge, wide temperature range cycling, and low internal resistance at the battery cell level.
Simultaneously, the development of battery technology also requires composite current collectors to be lightweight, functional, and cost-effective, further increasing the process difficulty.
In this context, AMTech's innovative self-developed "one-step" technology for composite current collectors is not only a single breakthrough in the lithium battery material field but also expected to help elevate lithium battery material technology.
02
What Are the Technical Advantages of AMTech, Favored by National Funds?
From the process route, composite aluminum foil mainly enhances battery cell safety and energy density, and the industry currently primarily uses vacuum evaporation for preparation; composite copper foil can significantly reduce material costs and achieve battery cell weight reduction, with diverse current processes including two-step (magnetron sputtering + electroplating), three-step (magnetron sputtering + vacuum evaporation + electroplating), electroless plating, dry lamination, vacuum evaporation, etc., without a unified processing process. According to reports, AMTech's "all-dry one-step vacuum evaporation film formation," i.e., the "one-step" technology, has achieved multiple technological breakthroughs.
In the innovation of composite current collector processes, AMTech possesses five core technologies and their advantages:
First, the metal-polymer interface modification technology, which can improve the interface performance between the metal layer and the polymer layer, excelling in core indicators such as square resistance, material bonding force, tensile strength, and surface tension.
Second, the deposition layer crystalline structure control technology, which can enhance the quality of evaporation film formation and achieve nanoscale control, breaking through the existing limits of metal performance.
Third, the high-efficiency vacuum evaporation deposition technology. Under the premise of ensuring film formation quality, this technology can deposit a metal functional layer of over 1000 nanometers on the base film in one go, optimizing film formation efficiency and performance.
Fourth, the large-scale manufacturing adaptation technology, thereby breaking through the current manufacturability limits.
Fifth, the application scenario-oriented product structure design, which can quickly respond to battery design needs, breaking through product specification limits.
Thus, AMTech's "one-step" technology for composite current collectors achieves a "triple leap" over traditional current collectors.
At the material level, it is reported that this preparation method can increase battery cell energy density by 5%-6%. Not only does it achieve a generational leap in material performance, but it also helps China's composite current collector technology maintain a leading position.
At the cost level, the "one-step" process increases the deposition efficiency of the functional layer several times and reduces metal usage by about 60%-70%. After large-scale production, when the yield reaches around 95%, composite copper foil can achieve a 20%-30% cost reduction compared to traditional copper foil.
At the safety level, it is reported that when the battery encounters extreme situations such as needle penetration, the metal layer of the composite current collector fuses, and the polymer substrate breaks to form physical isolation, further reducing the risk of thermal runaway.
It is worth mentioning that AMTech's technological innovation can also drive the chain upgrade of the industry chain.
Its collaboration with polymer substrate companies to develop high-strength base films can help domestic base film performance match international advanced levels; its self-developed roll-to-roll vacuum evaporation equipment increases production efficiency by three times, becoming another tool for extreme manufacturing in the lithium battery industry.
AMTech has also proactively diversified its battery technology routes. Its composite current collectors are not only applicable to the lithium-ion battery field but also to solid-state batteries, sodium-ion batteries, and other types of batteries, covering emerging fields such as electric aircraft and intelligent robots.
Battery China has learned that AMTech's double-sided one-step vacuum evaporation film formation process and composite current collector products, developed in combination with end-use applications from material, manufacturing, performance, and cost aspects, have been mass-produced and introduced into several top-tier new energy battery companies in China. Moreover, it has industrial bases in East China and Southwest China and is beginning to move towards the international market.
At this stage, the composite current collector field is driven by both "safety + cost reduction." In the view of AMTech Chairman Li Yongwei, the continuous upgrading of market demand will accelerate the large-scale application of composite current collectors. "ด้วยการพัฒนาของอุตสาหกรรมแบตเตอรี่ ในช่วงหลายปีข้างหน้า ตัวเก็บประจุคอมโพสิตจะค่อยๆแทนที่ตัวเก็บประจุแบบดั้งเดิมมากกว่า 50%"
