This article comes from the WeChat public account: Interface News , Reporter: Zhou Xiaodi, the picture is from: Visual China
Tesla CEO Elon Musk (Elon Musk) has released two pigeons in the battery world.
Affected by the epidemic, the Tesla “Battery Day” originally planned to be held in mid-April has been extended from May to June. “Battery Day” is the investor conference that Tesla will hold, and the company will announce the company’s major progress in the field of batteries.
The industry is most concerned about the announcement of information about battery composition that day.
Cobalt free cloud
Cobalt-free power batteries have caused an earthquake in the industry. From upstream cobalt raw material companies, midstream cathode material manufacturers, to downstream ternary battery companies.
Reuters reported on February 18 that Tesla is negotiating with Ningde Times to use cobalt-free batteries for electric vehicles produced at its Shanghai plant.
Closing the next day, (Gold) Chinese cobalt giant Han Rui Cobalt Co., Ltd., which owns cobalt ore, in the Congo “label =” Remarks “> (300618.SZ) , Huayou Cobalt (603799.SH) daily limit, Luoyang Molybdenum (603993.SH) fell 9.9%.
The share price of Glencore, the world ’s largest cobalt industry giant, fell sharply to 232 pence on February 19, and fell to 112.5 pence on March 23. He never returned to more than 200 pence.
According to Bloomberg News, Tesla and Glencore are negotiating a long-term contract to supply cobalt to the Shanghai plant.
In 2019, Tesla entered China and established a super factory in Shanghai in 11 months, and Tesla Model 3 began to be localized. (300750.SZ) , Panasonic, LG Chem and Ningde Times, are Tesla ’s battery suppliers in the Chinese market.
Go for cobalt while asking for cobalt. When talking about this issue on the interface news, many people in the industry believed that this was Musk’s brilliance and had always kept the initiative of negotiation in his own hands.
Musk “requires cobalt” because current ternary battery production is inseparable from cobalt, and “de-cobalt” is due to the desire to reduce battery costs.
As the “heart” of new energy vehicles, batteries account for about 30% to 40% of the total vehicle cost.
Three yuan lithium batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries are currently the two most commonly used lithium-ion power batteries for electric vehicles. The former has high energy density and strong endurance; the latter has good safety and low cost.
Photo source: Power Battery Technology
As the most expensive “one yuan” of the ternary battery cathode material, the role of cobalt is mainly to stabilize the layer structure of the material, improve the material cycle and rate performance. Because of the use of cobalt, the cathode material exceeds 40% of the cost of the ternary battery.
At present, nearly 70% of the global cobalt supply comes fromCongo ’s (gold) , the price per ton of cobalt is higher than US $ 30,000 .
The scarcity of cobalt, the instability of the Congo ’s (gold) policy, and the policy of limiting production and insured value of the head companies will all get stuck The neck of new energy car companies and battery companies.
The research report of Southwest Securities shows that after mass production of low-cobalt or non-cobalt ternary batteries, the cost can be reduced by 30%.
Cobalt-free ternary batteries are the common goal of car companies and battery companies.
Musk previously said that Tesla will continue to improve technology, strive to completely discard cobalt in the next generation of batteries, and change the reputation of “blood-battery”-Congo (Gold) Allow children to illegally mine cobalt.
Panasonic is one of the few global battery giants adopting NCA technology route. This technology is representative of high nickel and low cobalt, with a cobalt content of about 5%.
On behalf of the direction of high nickel and low cobalt, there are NCM811 batteries with a cobalt content of about 7%; the commonly used NCM523 batteries have a cobalt content of about 12%.
According to the different polymer elements of the positive electrode material, the ternary batteries on the market are divided into NCA and NCM batteries. NCA stands for cathode material using lithium nickel cobalt aluminate, NCM uses nickel cobalt lithium manganate, “523” and “811” represent the ratio of three elements of nickel cobalt manganese.
On May 11, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of Ningde Times, said at the online performance briefing that Ningde Times has its own cobalt-free battery technology reserve , and the current research and development is progressing smoothly, “is a brand new, Disruptive products “.
Who benefits from “decobalization”?
In this cobalt removal campaign, lithium iron phosphate batteries have become one of the biggest beneficiaries.
On the second day of discussing the use of cobalt-free batteries in the era of Tesla and Ningde, Xiangtan Electrochemical Co., Ltd., a stock of lithium iron phosphate battery platesclass = “text-remarks” label = “Remarks”> (002125.SZ) , Defang Nano (300769.SZ) , Hezong Technology (300477.SZ) recorded daily limit.
Domestic companies producing lithium iron phosphate batteries include BYD (002594.SZ), Guoxuan Hi-Tech (002074.SZ), Ningde Times, etc.
The lithium iron phosphate cathode material does not contain cobalt, and the cost only accounts for less than 15% of the total battery cost.
The data from Cinda Securities shows that the total power cost of ternary battery NCM523 is 724.91 yuan / kWh, which is 18.4% higher than 612.4 yuan / kWh of lithium iron phosphate battery.
But the cobalt-free batteries that the giants are discussing are not mature lithium iron phosphate batteries used in the market.
Although the lithium iron phosphate battery is stable and cheap, its energy density is low. If it is installed in a car, weighs almost one adult more than a ternary battery.
This means that its cruising range is far from satisfactory. Electric vehicles using lithium iron phosphate batteries on the market have a cruising range of about 200 kilometers.
This obviously cannot be compared with the endurance of a ternary battery of more than 400 kilometers.
In addition to the Chinese government’s subsidies for new energy electric vehicles loaded with ternary batteries, the market space of lithium iron phosphate has been compressed from the absolute mainstream of the early development of electric vehicles to only less than 30% of the domestic market.
To solve this pain point, battery companies began to develop new technologies to increase the endurance of lithium iron phosphate electric vehicles. BYD launched the blade battery, NTP developed the CTP (cell to pack, no module power battery pack) Technology.
In the view of Shen Hao, a key material research unit at the national level, these methods are to optimize the cell size, simplify the system and modules and other weight reduction methods to increase the energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries.
“But this has not changed the batteryChemical system. “Shen Hao told an interface reporter that the industry is more concerned about how ternary materials go to cobalt.
Can it be done without cobalt?
What is a cobalt-free battery based on ternary materials?
Ren Yuan, a professor in a key materials laboratory of a university, told an interface reporter that theoretically, ternary materials can be cobalt-free.
“After no cobaltization, the composition of the material will change a lot, and the cathode material may become a binary or quaternary material, but the basic structure remains unchanged.” Ren Yuan told Interface News.
The binary material refers to lithium nickel manganese oxide, and the quaternary material refers to nickel cobalt manganese aluminum (NCMA) polymer. The ternary material nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) removes cobalt and becomes the binary material lithium-nickel-manganese oxide.
Mo Ke, President of True Lithium Research, told the interface reporter that there are two major directions for the advancement of cathode materials technology: one is high voltage, and the other is high capacity.
“Lithium nickel manganate with a spinel structure belongs to the high voltage direction of 5 volts.” Mo Ke said that compared with the current ternary materials of 3.7 volts, due to the increase in voltage, the amount of electricity also increases accordingly.
But Mo Ke believes that the biggest problem with the nickel nickel manganate binary material is that cannot find a matching electrolyte system .
“The existing electrolyte system will be decomposed and the battery will fail.” Mo Ke said.
Honeycomb Technology, formerly known as the Great Wall Motor Power Battery Division, said on May 18 that it launched a thin-film cobalt-free battery.
It uses layered material lithium nickel manganate to replace the commercial lithium cobalt oxide used as the ternary battery cathode material.
Mo Ke said that the layered nickel manganese lithium belongs to the direction of high capacity, which is based on the layered nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) lithium acid Go on the basis of cobalt.
But Mo Ke believes that the current ternary decobalt is not yet in the practical stage, and even the strongest battery giants such as Panasonic and LG Chem cannot do “decobaltUse “.
The executives of the aforementioned cathode material companies said that the statement of cobalt-free batteries is not accurate, and “cobalt-free” batteries are just a research direction.
The person said that the current cobalt content of the cathode material of the Tesla battery factory is not low, about 6% to 7%.
“ Tesla hopes that the next-generation ternary battery will contain no more than 3% cobalt or even reduce it to zero.” The executive said, but even low-cobalt ternary batteries require It will take two to three years to achieve large-scale commercial use.
Ren Yuan also said that whether cobalt-free materials can be used in electric vehicles on a large scale, more data is needed to reach a conclusion.
Compared with industry rumors, the industrial layout of related companies can better reflect the true appearance of the market.
The three cobalt giants in China have not adjusted their respective cobalt sectors.
Hanrui Cobalt Industry, which accounts for more than 70% of its revenue, said at the online performance briefing on April 8th that in the short term, ternary lithium batteries are still one of the mainstream technology directions for power batteries. Always based on the main business of cobalt products.
“As the penetration of new energy vehicles continues to increase, even in the context of ternary battery low cobalt, it is expected that the demand for new energy vehicles will still increase cobalt.” Han Rui Cobalt Industry Secretary, Deputy General Manager Tao Kai said.
More companies are turning to high-volume materials.
The aforementioned cathode material executives believe that high nickel and low cobalt are a practical direction for ternary batteries in the future.
Ren Yuan also believes that the use of high-nickel materials is one of the technical routes recognized by the industry to improve battery energy density.
LG Chemical, Ningde Times, BYD, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Grammy and other companies are all laying nickel-cobalt-manganese aluminum (NCMA) battery materials .
The principle of this quaternary positive electrode material is to add aluminum element to the nickel-cobalt-manganese positive electrode polymer to suppress the instability of high nickel, and the ternary becomes quaternary material, gradually achieving low cobalt.
Huayou Cobalt, one of the cobalt giants, has also invested in nickel metal and cathode materials projects in Indonesia. Its nickel metal project of 60,000 tons is expected to be put into production this year.
In addition, Battery companies are also transforming ternary batteries to high nickel and low cobalt NCM622 and NCM811 ratio products.
Ningde Times said that NCM811 battery shipments accounted for 20% of its total shipments.
The research report of New Times Securities believes that compared to ordinary ternary materials, high-nickel ternary materials have three major barriers : the requirements for precursor preparation, cathode material sintering and production environment are relatively harsh The technical threshold, certification time and certification difficulty of high-nickel ternary materials entering battery manufacturers are increasing; the positive electrode materials must be doped and modified and surface-coated, and suitable high-nickel electrolytes need to be matched.
According to the interface reporter, from the perspective of the total cost per ton, the cost of the NCM811 battery is 20,000 yuan higher than that of the NCM523 battery, and the former process is more complicated.
Ren Yuan also said that In the ternary material, increasing the nickel content will reduce the stability of the cycle, and the safety risk will increase.
“The battery cycle stability of high nickel materials can be achieved by optimizing the material structure, surface coating, etc. The safety can be achieved by developing supporting non-combustible electrolytes, optimizing the battery structure, adding overcharge protection, optimizing the thermal management system Way to improve. “Ren Jie said, but these technologies are more complex, and the large-scale application of high-nickel materials requires the joint efforts of academia and business.
This means that the current ternary batteries are still inseparable from cobalt.
As for what big news Tesla will reveal on the battery day, the industry can only guess based on Musk ’s previous words.
Electrekc, an American electric vehicle news site, said that Tesla is likely to announce its “road runner” on Battery Day (Roadrunner) Battery project, which aims to reduce the production cost of electric vehicles; Tesla may also launch Model S models with new batteries and announce which factories will produce new batteries.
Mo Ke told the interface reporter that Tesla may announce three things on the battery day: the progress of the joint development of batteries with Panasonic; announced that it will use lithium iron phosphate batteries, or use NCM523 CTP batteries in the Ningde era Technology; announce the latest dry electrode technology.
“No one can guess what changes Musk will brew in the next second, geniusIt ’s all the same, like Jobs. “A Tesla fan commented on Musk’s Twitter.
(According to the interviewee ’s request, Shen Hao and Ren Yuan are pseudonyms in the text)
This article comes from the WeChat public account: Interface News , reporter: Xiaoxiao Zhou < / span>