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The most concerned by the lithium market this year is the solid-state battery technology route. In the primary and secondary markets, the boom in solid-state batteries not only led to the peak of investment and financing of start-ups, but also pushed up the share prices of solid-state battery-related companies. At the national level, emphasis is placed on solid-state battery technology, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Finance take the lead to provide 6 billion yuan of government basic research and development funding support for the development of all-solid-state batteries.
In the industry, since the beginning of this year, head battery manufacturers have intensively disclosed the progress of solid-state battery planning. Among them, Ningde Times plans to achieve small batch production of all-solid-state batteries in 2027; Guoxuan High-tech released the first stone solid state battery, plans to 2027 small batch on the car, 2030 to achieve mass production; Zhongchuang Xinhang released "borderless" solid-state batteries, and plans to implement the loading of vehicles in 2027, and so on.
Reasons behind the solid-state battery craze
There are requirements for technological upgrading at the industrial level, and there are also industrial chain games in different countries and regions at a larger level.
First of all, as far as the industrial chain technology development is concerned, the current technology system has gradually reached the performance bottleneck, in the downstream market, the safety and energy density performance of the battery has not fully solved the concerns of consumers, taking the new energy vehicle market as an example, after the terminal penetration rate exceeded 50%, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles slowed down.
Expanding the market share of new energy vehicles requires the support of a new generation of battery technology. Solid-state batteries, as the next generation of battery technology, carry the expectation of technological upgrading in the industry because of their significant improvement in safety and energy density.
Then rise to the national strategic level, with the continuous expansion of lithium battery applications, energy storage, aviation, ships, new energy vehicles, etc., lithium industry has become a representative of the new century energy innovation, with the further expansion of the lithium industry application market and scale, is expected to become an important support for the pillar industrial chain of countries.
International competition for lithium technology is also surging, Japan, South Korea, the United States, European countries have also promoted solid-state battery technology development planning, in order to catch up with China in the next generation of technology.
Challenges in all-solid-state battery R&D
The difficulty of producing solid-state batteries is the primary problem in the industry. As a pioneer of solid-state batteries, Toyota has repeatedly delayed the production schedule of solid-state batteries, and domestic battery and material companies have not reached a consensus on the technical route of solid-state batteries. At present, the vehicles that can be loaded are semi-solid batteries, that is, the traditional liquid electrolyte is replaced by a solid-liquid mixed electrolyte. Many car companies and even the "solid state batteries" claimed by battery companies are also "semi-solid state batteries". Although semi-solid batteries are regarded as a transitional technical route to all-solid-state batteries, there are still differences between the two technologies in nature.
Some industry insiders said that the semi-solid battery technology route is mainly to upgrade the traditional liquid lithium battery technology, the equipment and battery material system used is consistent with the traditional liquid lithium battery, and it has large-scale production conditions. However, in contrast, all-solid-state batteries, whether equipment, materials, or processes, are currently immature. The industry transition from semi-solid batteries, in fact, is also for the all-solid-state battery materials, equipment research and development time, from the side also shows that the all-solid-state battery mass production is still facing many problems.
The manufacturing problem mainly lies in whether the materials and equipment are mature, and whether the yield of production is guaranteed. At present, in the solid-state battery technology route, oxides, polymers, sulfides, etc., have received market attention because of a long history of research and development. The common technical problems of the three technical routes include the conductivity and stability problems caused by solid interface contact, and a better way has not been found at present.
Taking sulfide all-solid-state battery as an example, at the interface level, due to the instability of electrodes and solid state electrolyte, interface problems will lead to Li+ depletion, hinder charge transfer, and then affect the energy, power characteristics and service life of all-solid-state batteries, although the current interface problems can be introduced by buffer layers, such as positive electrode coating and negative electrode artificial SEI layer. However, the design and construction of uniform buffer layer are still challenging.
In addition, applying sufficiently high pressure to the composite electrode and battery is the way to mechanical failure of the link interface, but the manner and magnitude of the pressure is still uncertain. As far as industrial equipment is concerned, the equipment is relatively mature in terms of polymer and oxide technology routes, but the sulfide route equipment still has a lot of room for performance improvement.
In addition to the interface problem, the dendrite problem also exists in solid state batteries, due to the problem of solid media, solid state batteries are prone to uneven deposition during the charge and discharge process, resulting in holes and polarization, affecting the performance and service life of solid state batteries. Materials are another big issue. In addition to the stability of the electrochemical properties of the solid electrolyte itself, how to match the appropriate cathode and anode materials is also a major difficulty.
For solid-state batteries, the biggest role is that the innovation of the comprehensive material system has brought about a leap-forward improvement in energy density and safety, which also means that the positive and negative electrode materials are not limited to the ternary, lithium iron phosphate system, but the lithium metal negative electrode and silicon-based negative electrode as cutting-edge technology applications are not mature. Finding suitable new anode and cathode materials is a major direction for the industry to explore.
Challenges in widespread application of solid-state batteries
Whether solid state batteries can be widely promoted mainly depends on the cost, cost-effective and safety issues. The high production cost is another problem faced by solid-state batteries, especially the production of high-performance solid-state batteries. From the point of view of material cost, the current solid-state battery material cost is high, and the cost of sulfide solid electrolyte alone reaches 20,000 yuan /kg.
The chaos of solid-state battery material prices, but also caused the imbalance of solid-state battery cost structure, industry insiders said that the current solid-state battery industry chain is in the early stage of development, material prices fluctuate greatly, did not form a stable and transparent cost structure, for different enterprises, different order demand, upstream material companies are often treated with differentiated prices. These factors all drive up the cost of solid-state batteries.
According to the head battery manufacturers, the goal is to achieve the cost of solid-state batteries in 2027 at the level of 1.5-2 yuan /Wh, but this cost level is still a certain distance from the industrialization goal. Compared with the price of lithium iron phosphate batteries in the same period, it is expected that in 2027 it will be 0.3 yuan /Wh or even lower, and the cost price of solid-state batteries exceeds the price of lithium iron phosphate by more than 5 times.
In addition, the current industry chain is mainly based on 10Ah and 20Ah capacity solid-state battery production samples, and the battery capacity of the tram is more than 50Ah, or even 100Ah. In the production of large-capacity solid-state batteries, there are exponential safety risks during the testing process. In combination with the above problems, there are many bottlenecks in solid-state battery new energy storage technology, and it is still mainly in the laboratory.
Mass production of all-solid-state batteries is not equivalent to commercialization
However, compared with the difficulties encountered by solid-state batteries, it is clear that the market has greater expectations for solid-state batteries. The craze for all-solid-state batteries has also swept from the initial passenger car market to aviation and energy storage. According to incomplete statistics, more than 20 battery companies and car companies have announced their own solid-state battery mass production and car plans, and the time node is mostly concentrated in 2027-2028. However, it is also worth noting that mass production and boarding do not equal real commercial applications.
In the true sense of commercial application, it means that the product can be large-scale and low-cost production, which is the basic condition for the popularization of consumer applications. From this condition, battery manufacturers and car companies in 2027-2028 mass production and loading from the real sense of commercial application is still far away. At present, the disclosed all-solid mass production and on-board plan has more demonstration significance than application significance.
Conclusion
The mass production and car in 2027 is a goal and wind direction, not equal to the real market, the state 6 billion yuan to support solid-state batteries, but also to encourage and explore this cutting-edge technology. For industrialization, even if all-solid-state batteries achieve technological breakthroughs and achieve industrialization by 2030, it will take at least 20-30 years to replace 50% of the market share of liquid lithium batteries. From research and development to mass production, from mass production to commercial use, each industrial process of solid-state batteries has uncertainties.
Therefore, the market for the all-solid-state battery technology route is also questioned, through the current chaotic industrial ecology of solid-state batteries, but also breeding a series of industry chaos. Industry insiders admit that there are now a number of solid-state battery start-ups, and many companies on the heat of solid-state batteries, for this part of the enterprise, solid-state batteries is a means of commercial operation, rather than industrialization as the goal.
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