Manganese-based batteries rise, and lithium ferromanganese phosphate is coming
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2022/07/19 17:37:28
In the hot power battery metal track, lithium, cobalt, nickel three key metals are the focus of the market, the price is also rising.
However, as the price of raw materials continues to rise, and the imbalance between the amount of resource development and market demand, battery enterprises can not "sit idle". Therefore, in recent years, major enterprises are exploring new metal batteries. Recently, manganese-based lithium ferromanganese phosphate batteries, which use more manganese materials, have attracted the attention of the market.
As the upgraded version of lithium iron phosphate, lithium iron manganese phosphate (LMFP) is a new cathode material obtained by adding manganese element on the basis of lithium iron phosphate. Compared with lithium iron phosphate, lithium iron phosphate has a higher voltage platform, about 15% higher energy density, and still retains the safety and low cost characteristics of lithium iron phosphate cell.
In addition to being used alone, lithium ferromanganese phosphate can also be mixed with other cathode materials to improve battery performance, which is also a major direction of lithium ferromanganese phosphate industrialization. The energy density of lithium ferromanganese phosphate combined with 80% ternary 523 material has little effect, but the safety performance is significantly improved, and the overall cost of ternary battery system is reduced.
Because of these advantages, lithium ferromanganese phosphate is one of the key research objects of many power battery manufacturers.
However, there are also material reasons behind the failure of mass production of ferromanganese phosphate lithium batteries. The data show that the electronic conductivity and ionic conductivity of lithium ferromanganese phosphate are obviously lower than that of ternary materials and lithium ferromanganese phosphate, thus showing poor conductivity and poor rate characteristics. The charge and discharge efficiency of the first ring of lithium ferromanganese phosphate is about 92%, while lithium ferromanganese phosphate can achieve more than 95%. The poor conductivity and polarization of manganese lead to the reduction of discharge voltage platform, the reduction of cycle life and the loss of capacity.
At present, the mainstream power battery is divided into ternary lithium and lithium iron phosphate, the latter has the advantages of low cost, strong safety, in terms of production and loading more than ternary battery, but the energy density of lithium iron phosphate battery is close to the "ceiling". Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that battery companies are looking for a different approach.
In fact, lithium ferromanganese phosphate batteries are not a new technology. As early as 2013, byd has carried on the related research, and thereafter said it will launch the ferromanganese lithium phosphate as upgrade path of lithium iron phosphate, but at the time because of the subsidy policy tilt to high energy density of the ternary material, manufacturers have to embrace the ternary high capacity of the material, the route is not become mainstream, byd in 2016 ended the related development.
However, BYD still laid out the technical route, for the subsequent re-use of the technology to do enough preparation; In 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019, Guoxuan Also applied for technology patents related to lithium ferromangan-phosphate. In December 2021, Ningde Times invested 413 million yuan in Jiangsu Litai Lithium Energy, becoming its largest shareholder. At that time, the news that Jiangsu Litai Lithium energy planned to build a new production line with an annual output of 3,000 tons of lithium ferromanganese phosphate also entered the market.
It is worth mentioning that not only domestic lithium battery giants have shown strong interest in ferromanganese phosphate lithium battery, but Also Tesla CEO Elon Musk has shown interest in mangan-based positive battery. "I think manganese-based batteries have potential," Musk said. "With very large [battery] requirements, we need tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of tons of raw materials," he added. So the materials you use for mass production of batteries have to be common materials or they won't scale." Speaking at Tesla Battery Day 2020, Musk also said that it is relatively simple to use two-thirds nickel and one-third manganese as the cathode material, which allows the same amount of nickel to increase the battery capacity by more than 50%.
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