Whether it is a new energy vehicle or energy storage device, one of the most important key components is the battery. A challenge in the battery industry in recent years is to increase the energy density and pursue a safer method . Whether it is trying new positive electrode and negative electrode materials, or increasing the specific gravity of nickel, such as the ratio of nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) ternary batteries has increased from the original 5:3:2 to 6:2:2, or even to 8:1:1. Some people are committed to developing technologies that are different from traditional lithium batteries, such as hydrogen energy vehicles that use hydrogen fuel cells, and solid-state battery (Solid-State Battery) is considered the next generation of battery technology.
The industry invested in solid-state battery research. The most popular one is Toyota (Toyota), Apple, Dyson (Dyson ), battery cell giants such as Samsung's SDI and LG's LG Chem were not absent. However, when other companies are still developing or trial production, a company has taken the lead in mass production and shipment of small-capacity solid-state batteries. This unknown ProLogium actually received investment from SoftBank China Capital (SBCVC) a few years ago. According to DT, SoftBank China continues to invest more. Huin just completed the D with a total investment of US$150 million in January 2019. The round of financing will be used to expand the factory. The planned production capacity of the new factory is 1GWh, and it is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
Figure | Huineng's main investor is SoftBank China Capital (Picture source: SoftBank China Capital Official Website)
What is a solid state battery?
Most consumer electronic products or new energy vehicles use lithium-ion batteries, including positive electrode material, negative electrode material, separator, and liquid electrolyte ( electrolyte ). Electrolyte transfers ions between the anode and the cathode. If the battery charges too fast, the reaction of lithium ions and electrolytes may form dendrite or metal whiskers, which will form a short circuit. In addition, the failure of the gel polymer separator will also cause the electrode short circuit, making battery explosions occasionally heard of in mobile phones or new energy vehicles.
The battery using electrolyte can be called a liquid battery, and solid battery, as the name suggests, is to replace the liquid component used in existing lithium-ion batteries with solid materials.
Simply put, solid-state batteries have three major advantages: the battery will not leak fluid, and will not explode or catch fire when damaged or pierced, so high security is the first and biggest advantage. The second is high energy density . The industry believes that the density and structure of solid-state batteries can allow more charged ions to gather at one end, conduct greater current and increase battery capacity, so that the energy density can be increased to more than 400Wh/kg, which is better than ordinary lithium batteries.
Third, the potential of to be thin and flexible . Traditional lithium batteries using electrolytes must be added to a diaphragm between the cathode and the anode to prevent short circuits. Generally speaking, the thickness of the diaphragm is about 20 to 30 microns, while solid-state batteries do not require diaphragm, and the thickness of the solid-state electrolyte is about 3 to 4 microns, so the thickness is much thinner than that of traditional batteries. This allows electronic products or automobiles to achieve greater benefits in appearance design or space utilization. The flexibility of also meets the current needs of foldable screen mobile phones and wearable devices. There are different technical routes in the field of solid-state batteries. solid electrolytes can be roughly divided into three categories: inorganic electrolytes, solid polymer electrolytes (SPE, Solid Polymer Electrolytes), and composite electrolytes . Currently, the materials that many operators have invested in research include solid polymers, sulfides, oxides, thin films, etc. For example, the solid-state battery factories Sakti3 and Infinite Power Solutions acquired by Dyson and Apple are both mainly thin films, but the process is complicated and mass production is difficult. It was reported in the market that Dyson and Apple were intentionally giving up, so the development situation is not very clear at this stage. Toyota, Panasonic, Samsung, BMW, and CATL invested in sulfide electrolytes, while Huineng and Sony focused on oxides.
Apple has been actively laying out patents for solid-state batteries and charging technology since 2012, and acquired Infinite Power Solutions in 2013.In the past two or three years, news of automobile factories deploying solid-state batteries has come to the fore. For example, Toyota announced that it will sell electric vehicles equipped with solid-state batteries to the outside world in 2022. In addition, Volkswagen has invested in QuantumScape, a solid-state battery startup founded by Jagdeep Singh, a young entrepreneur of MIT Technology Review. It increased its investment in June last year and won a director of QuantumScape. It is expected to establish a solid-state lithium battery production line in 2025.
. Japan, a former battery powerhouse, has gradually abandoned lithium batteries, has turned its research focus to solid-state batteries. Japan's Science and Technology Revitalization Agency (JST) and Japan's New Energy Industry Technology Development Agency (NEDO) have actively promoted it. These dynamics have made the outside world pay attention to this technology.
Figure | Players who invest in solid-state batteries (Picture source: Yole Développement)
List of solid-state battery companies that are concerned about in the market
(Compiled by: DeepTech DeepTech)
What is Huineng?
This company, which is unfamiliar to the public, has actually been established for more than 10 years. Yang Si-hyun, the founder of Huineng Technology, is a veteran in Taiwan's electronics industry. After graduating from the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Institute of Materials of Taiwan University, he first worked for the battery company Taiwan Super Energy, and then joined Hongsheng, a soft printed circuit board (FPC) factory under Foxconn Group, to serve as the head of RD. He is optimistic about the future of solid-state batteries. He combines the major of batteries and soft boards to found Huineng.
Figure | Yang Siyu, founder of Huineng Technology (Source: Huineng)
Huineng replaced the separator and electrolyte with ceramic electrolytes and developed lithium ceramic batteries (LCB, Lithium Ceramic Battery). The first product, "Flexible Lithium Ceramic Battery" (FLCB, FPC Lithiun-Ceramitic Battry), is to use soft plates as substrates and packaging materials to allow the battery to be bent, with the highest number of bent times up to 10,000 times. Later, a high-capacity lithium ceramic battery (PLCB) was launched.
Fortunately, the first FLCB battery allowed Hui to win indicator orders at that time. In 2013, HTC launched the One max smartphone, and together it launched the HTC Power Flip Case accessories, which looks like a lift-cover leather case, but has a built-in battery. One max has three contact points on the back of the phone, which can be charged when in contact with the leather case. Although not many people noticed the difference between this battery and general liquid lithium batteries at that time, it actually showed that small-capacity solid-state batteries were able to be mass-produced, and this project became the first case to start making profits.
Picture | Huineng's flexible lithium ceramic battery (Source: DT Jun) After
, many customers with high safety and explosion-proof needs came to the door. For example, the British mobile phone accessories company Tech21 specializes in protecting mobile phone back covers. Because they want to make a back cover with a battery and have high requirements for explosion-proof falling, they look at Huineng's solid-state batteries.
There are also smart safety helmet operators. The safety helmet developed by the company has functions such as Bluetooth connection, headset calls, speed measurement, etc., so the safety helmet needs a built-in battery, but riding a bicycle is inevitably at risk of accidents in a car accident. It is impossible for the rider to fall, but the safety helmet battery explodes because of the fall, which will happen. Therefore, customers are also willing to purchase at a higher cost for the high safety of solid-state batteries. Other customers also have semiconductor equipment manufacturers.
Figure | Market application promotion of large-capacity solid-state batteries (Picture source: Yole Développement)
realizes mass production of small-capacity solid-state batteries, and switches to the new energy vehicle market
With these consumer electronics and wearable devices customers bring stable revenue. After accumulating several years of mass production experience of small-capacity solid-state batteries, three years ago, Huineng began to focus its research and development focus on a larger market - electric vehicles, and developed high-voltage lithium ceramic batteries (BLCB).There are great technical differences between
, which is used as a small-capacity solid-state battery and the large-capacity batteries used in cars. First of all, cars require very high voltages. The existing new energy vehicle battery pack is to connect many battery cells in "external series" method to connect them in series. Huineng uses "bipolar" (BiPolar) technology, which is characterized by directly connecting in series and parallel inside the battery cell. The rated voltage of a single battery cell can range from 7.4 volts (2 strings), and the maximum voltage standardized in the automotive industry is 60 volts (15 strings), which can save the space for external series and help simplify the complex battery management design mechanism.
So, why can't liquid batteries be used for BiPolar technology? Generally, when the electrolyte of liquid batteries exceeds 4 to 5 volts, the electrolyte will disintegrate, and there is a safety risk if the battery is unstable. Therefore, only solid-state batteries can achieve BiPolar at present.
Huineng showed the solid-state battery pack (including battery cells) used in new energy vehicles at CES this year. With the same vehicle capacity, the battery pack is only half of the volume of traditional batteries and weighs 70% of the traditional batteries. Huineng uses multi-dimensional series-parallel BiPolar + 3D technology to create a single 85.2 volt high voltage and 20KWh large capacity battery pack, so just 4 batteries can form an 80KWh new energy vehicle battery pack.
Figure | Huineng developed a solid-state battery pack for new energy vehicles. With the same vehicle capacity, the battery pack is only half the volume of a traditional battery and its weight is 70% of that of a traditional battery (Source: DT Jun)
What is this concept? Judging from the capacity of Tesla Model 3 battery pack with a capacity of 80.5KWh and 4416 batteries were used, the number of Huineng batteries is only about 1/1104 of that of Model3. The number of batteries is used in small quantities, and the battery management system is simplified, saving the wire between the battery cell packaging material and the connecting battery cell. In addition, the solid-state battery is safe and has no risk of explosion, which has attracted many people from car manufacturers and battery factories to check in Huineng's stalls.
It is understood that Huineng has negotiated cooperation with an European automobile group, and it is expected that a prototype car equipped with its solid-state battery will be unveiled as early as the second half of 2019.
does not fight with large battery cell manufacturers, and enters China and Europe through cooperation or authorization. Although solid-state batteries have many benefits, they still encounter many difficulties at present, especially large-capacity batteries. Different solid-state electrolyte materials have their own advantages and disadvantages. Dr. Li Hong, a researcher at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said at the 6th "Auto and Environment" Innovation Forum that the main shortcoming of polymer all-solid-state lithium batteries is that they must work at 60 degrees or above. is prone to short-circuiting ; thin-film all-solid-state lithium batteries have good cycling and adapt to high voltages, but are not easy to amplify the capacity. In addition, the safety and stability of oxide all-solid-state lithium batteries are good, but large-scale mass production has not been fully achieved. Therefore, there is still a distance between solid-state batteries and final application.
Furthermore, the cost of solid-state batteries is still far higher than that of liquid lithium batteries, which is several times the gap. In order to narrow the cost gap between solid-state batteries and liquid lithium batteries, Huineng has also changed its production model. In the past, it adopted "chip" production, but now it can be changed to "roll" production (roll to roll), and expand its own production capacity. It also cooperates with automobile factories or battery cell factories. At present, Huineng has cooperated with many mainland, European and American car companies and has passed the electrical and safety testing of automobile companies.
The battery industry can be said to be an industry with many giants, because of large capital investment and high entry thresholds. For example, battery cells include SDI and LG Chem, and CATL and and BYD in China. For new entrants or startups, they often cannot afford to play games with big capital, especially in the automotive industry. Car manufacturers often hope that batteries can be produced locally. Small battery cell operators mainly engaged in research and development do not have the funds to set up factories overseas. Huineng is very clear about his positioning and does not fight with giants. He can also cooperate, such as authorizing patented technology, so that interested battery cell manufacturers or car companies can produce domestic solid-state batteries themselves.
Figure | Solid State Lithium Ceramic Battery Alliance developed by Huineng (Source: DT Jun)
In addition, Huineng is also preparing to jointly establish the "Solid State Lithium Ceramic Battery Alliance" with European car manufacturers in Europe, providing a platform for communicating technology and market standards for authorized partners around the world, shortening the research and development process of solid-state battery technology, overcome the three challenges of technology, safety and mass production, and realize the commercialization of solid-state batteries.
"We will do a good job in R&D, transfer the technology locally, and directly provide Turn Key services, selling core materials and 1 billion watt-hour mass production equipment, because the most important purpose is to make solid-state battery technology better the more people use it," Huineng's executive told DT Jun.
Although the mass production of large-capacity solid-state batteries still has challenges, there is no doubt that the safety and high energy density of batteries are the two key directions pursued by the industry. With the promotion of the research and development of startups, industry giants, and scientific research institutions, the future commerciality of solid-state batteries is worth looking forward to.
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