Let’s first take a look at the last four pieces of patent information, which are from Huawei and Ningde era.
Huawei, whose patent name is “doped sulphide material and its preparation method, lithium-ion battery”, just passed a preliminary examination by the State intellectual property Office on November 5.
The three solid-state battery patents of Ningde era published by the State intellectual property Office are “modified solid-state electrolyte and its preparation method, solid-state battery and electric device”, “solid-state electrolyte film and preparation method thereof, solid-state battery, electric device” and “solid-state battery monomer and manufacturing method thereof” respectively.
Needless to say about the patents of the Ningde era the news of Huawei’s patents is of greater signal significance than actual significance and of course no one will despise it.
In addition, BYD, another battery giant, applied for an all-solid-state battery invention patent as early as August 7.
Not only is it a patent but there has also been new news in the Ningde era the leading battery leader.
According to media revelations, the Ningde era also brought in a huge amount of resources on the scale of thousands of people to gamble on all-solid-state batteries.
For a moment, there was a sense of change.
Bet on the future.
at the power battery conference in September, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of Ningde Times, revealed that the R & D level of the all-solid-state battery industry is not high, and Ningde’s own R & D is at the level of TRL (technology maturity) level 4, that is, the stage of technology stereotyping, and plans to upgrade to the TRL7~8 level by 2027, which may achieve small batch production.
Zeng Yuqun also said that compared with its competitors, the research of Ningde era is “a big step ahead” and is “second to none”.
We don’t know, but we can’t stand the hope and enthusiasm of competitors in the industry for solid-state batteries.
Well, Huawei also entered the arena.
This time, Huawei patented doped sulphide material has good stability for metal lithium (as a negative electrode) and can be used as a sulfide solid electrolyte in lithium-ion batteries, making lithium-ion batteries have a long service life.
The background of this invention patent is that the electrochemical stability window between the material used in the sulphide solid electrolyte and the metal lithium negative electrode is narrow, and the side reaction of the “solid-solid interface” in the process of charge and discharge is serious.
Although sulphide solid electrolyte is the most potential of several solid electrolytes at present, it is a solid electrolyte with high ionic conductivity at room temperature.
However, at present, it is still unable to solve the serious side effects of the solid interface.
This is also a difficult problem in the industry, and there is no good way at present.
Huawei has proposed a seemingly good solution this time.
Is it all right? there is no information at present.
But that means Huawei is on the move.
Those who mainly focus on the sulphide route are, of course, the leading Ningde era.
According to media revelations, Ningde era has recently entered the 20Ah sample trial production stage, in other words, has entered the production technology exploration stage.
In terms of team, Ningde era has expanded the all-solid-state battery research and development team to more than 1000 people.
From following before to making a big bet, Ningde era’s planned timeline for solid-state batteries is similar to Toyota, LG New Energy, Samsung SDI and so on, slightly faster than BYD.
It’s obviously speeding up now.
In the middle of last year, Wu Kai, chief scientist of Ningde Times, said, “if Toyota says that today’s energy produces all-solid-state batteries, I am skeptical.
At present, no one in the industry has the ability to mass-produce all-solid-state batteries.
” As to whether it can be mass produced in 2027, as a technician, it is also difficult for me to say accurately.
” But in March this year, Wu Kai shared the progress of all-solid-state battery research and development in Ningde era at a forum.
Half a year later, Zeng Yuqun revealed a timetable for “small-scale mass production of all-solid-state batteries in 2027”.
In April, Wu Kai said again at the International Battery Technology Exchange that Ningde era has built a 10Ah all-solid-state battery performance verification platform, and has made technical progress in all-solid-state battery cathode materials, technology and manufacturing equipment.
At a time when most solid-state battery companies cannot build hundreds of millions of laboratories, Ningde era is willing to invest billions of resources and personnel to gamble on solid-state batteries, which is unprecedented confidence.
As I have said in several previous articles the problem of solid-state batteries is not resolved so quickly and may end after semi-solid-state batteries reach a balance between technology and cost.
In fact in my opinion only high-end long-range models eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles) and other directions have a clear demand for solid-state batteries.
Because eVTOL has higher requirements for battery energy density, power, magnification, safety, fast charge and long life, the energy density of mass-produced batteries can not be achieved at present.
Therefore, all-solid-state batteries are a better source of power, and eVTOL is relatively insensitive to cost.
Citic Securities also mentioned that eVTOL has become an important landing scene for solid-state batteries.
According to the data released by the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance the number of semi-solid batteries installed reached 2.
2GWh in the first half of this year which is beginning to take shape.
But why do people gamble so much now? On the one hand the existing lithium battery is not perfect and there are security loopholes.
On the other hand, it is still relatively large in size and weight, and the solid-state battery solution looks perfect in every way.
That’s all.
The question is, can we achieve the goal of “winning the other side”? The first person to start developing solid-state batteries was Toyota.
Toyota has long said it will mass-produce solid-state batteries by 2027.
In 2024, despite the release of the latest battery developments with a 10-minute full range of 1200 kilometers and the start of mass production in 2026, according to an article in the Toyota Times, actual production is planned for “2030 and beyond.
” In other words, the time of mass production is reversed and then reversed.
While the domestic situation is even more magical, there will be news and news of solid-state batteries getting on the car from time to time, but after a little research, they are all semi-solid state batteries in a transitional state, and the word “all” is also a change of concept.
In a word, it’s all marketing.
However the release of solid-state batteries has been much more formal so far this year.
For example, when Chery released the Kunpeng battery not long ago, it made it clear that it would get on the car in 2026 and even demonstrated the solid-state battery VCR that could be used normally after cutting a corner.
In the Ningde era, because of the clear distinction between batteries, the schedule of solid-state batteries will be more reliable and more realistic.
At present, solid-state batteries mainly have three technical routes: sulfides, oxides and polymers.
As mentioned earlier, the Ningde era chose a sulfide route similar to that of Toyota.
Wu Kai also said at a previous technical forum that the sulphide route has the highest performance limit and the fastest mass production progress.
In addition, there are new technological routes such as halide.
For example, BYD is focusing on the development of halide solid-state batteries.
The reason why Ningde era and Toyota choose sulphide electrolyte is that the lithium ion conductivity is similar to that of liquid, and the other is that it will not be “choked” in terms of materials.
Of course, today’s sulfides are still very difficult to prepare, expensive and expensive, with a current price of more than $500 per kilogram of sulfides.
In addition, sulphide electrolytes are easily oxidized to produce toxic gases.
To put it bluntly these technical routes all have corresponding basic shortcomings.
Including the problem of “solid interface” mentioned earlier, as well as the problem of “lithium dendrite” and so on.
In addition, the manufacturing process of all-solid-state battery is not compatible with the existing battery production process, and many processes need to be reinvented, so the natural manufacturing cost is even higher.
However, judging from Wu Kai’s speech on “R & D and industrialization Development of Automotive all-solid-state batteries”, Ningde era has found ideas and solutions to these problems in the sample stage of 10Ah.
To put it simply the solution of all-solid-state battery in Ningde era is to change the high-nickel ternary cathode particles from polycrystal to single crystal and to carry out double-layer coating the first layer of inorganic oxide coating to restrain the reaction of the interface and the second layer of solid electrolyte coating to enhance the ion diffusion of the interface.
This is to improve structural stability.
The interface between positive and negative electrodes and solid electrolyte relies on self-developed multi-functional composite binder to build a stable and efficient electrode conductive network, that is, to improve the electrical conductivity.
Lithium metal or alloy is used as negative electrode, the hydrophobic layer is coated with sulfide solid electrolyte, and the hydrophobic layer is removed before the core seal to improve air stability.
In addition, at present, Ningde era can 230mAh/g the positive electrode capacity of solid state battery (the key index affecting battery energy density) and increase the service life of composite cathode to 6000 times.
However, from the published data chart, the volatility of capacity is relatively high.
For the problem of lithium dendrites, Ningde era put forward a new idea to automatically fill the gaps that may grow lithium dendrites with materials that can flexibly change their volume properties (phase change self-filling technology), and at the same time use the design of lipophilic interface layer to realize high performance lithium metal negative electrode.
As far as I understand it, the “sponge” with strong flexibility and good electrical conductivity is used to inhibit the growth of lithium dendrites.
In addition, the sulphide electrolyte coated by the hydrophobic layer can remain stable at the dew point of-40 ℃ (an indicator of environmental dryness), and the electrical conductivity can be maintained at about 60%.
After large-scale, the cost of electrolyte is also expected to be greatly reduced.
In addition to the improvement of materials, Ningde era also broke through the manufacturing technologies such as dry electrode, ultra-thin electrolyte transfer printing, isostatic pressing and so on.
However, this is still a long way from mass production, and there are still many engineering problems to be solved in the Ningde era.
Today, not only are companies adding solid-state batteries, but they are also paying attention to them.
Prior to this, one of the things that caused a great deal of speculation was that the subsidy for all-solid-state battery research and development in the industry was more than 6 billion yuan.
of course, some of the funds needed to be put in place after the enterprise’s R & D projects had made progress.
The above goal is to achieve small-scale mass production of all-solid-state batteries by 2027.
With the support of leaders and the support of the masses, the industrialization of solid-state batteries is also making new progress.
However, at present, they are mainly semi-solid batteries.
So who can dominate the ups and downs of all-solid-state batteries? This question comes to mind every time there is new news to deceive.
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