It's a race between China and the US to replace lithium batteries with nano batteries?

C said that the company will release sodium batteries around July, and this news has sparked heated discussions.

Another fact is that the price of lithium salt has risen sharply, which directly pushed up the cost of lithium batteries. In this context, the call for sodium batteries to replace lithium batteries is increasing.

Not long ago, the chairman of CATL, Zeng Yuqun, revealed at the annual general meeting that sodium batteries will be released around July this year, which is believed to lead changes in the battery technology route in the future.

Why compare sodium batteries with lithium batteries?

Most fundamentally, sodium is more abundant than lithium. Public information shows that the content of sodium in the earth's crust is 2.4%, in addition to sodium in seawater. On the other hand, lithium and lead are less in content, and their respective proportions in the earth's crust are 0.0065% and 0.0016% respectively.

The abundance of raw materials means that the cost is relatively low.

In addition, the current energy density of sodium-ion batteries is about 90-140Wh/kg, and the number of cycles is 1000-4000, which is better than lead-acid batteries but lower than lithium-ion batteries.

Therefore, the low energy density and endowment advantages of sodium electricity make many people in the industry look forward to its future.

But in fact, the future may be far away.

In fact, sodium batteries are not new, they have already been born. It mainly uses sodium ions as the positive electrode material. One type contains a large amount of electrolyte, and the other type is a solid crystal battery that does not contain electrolyte, that is, sodium-sulfur battery.

In fact, sodium-sulfur batteries have already been mass-produced in our country, so sodium batteries are neither new nor disruptive technology.

Earlier, some foreign countries have invented related technologies, but there has been no further research and application, indicating that some problems will actually be encountered.

Since the technology is not a new technology, and the application is not a new application, why can the news released by CATL arouse such a big response in the industry?

On the one hand, of course, because the announcement was from the Ningde era, the company's position in the battery field is self-evident.

On the other hand, it is the background of the statement.

Zeng Yuqun believes that the upstream price increase of lithium batteries is not conducive to the development of the industry.

The implication is that if it doesn't work, then there are more choices, and the battery may be a suitable choice. After all, lithium resources are very limited and prices are soaring. The cost gap between the two is clear at a glance.

However, this does not mean that nano-batteries will quickly replace lithium batteries.

Power batteries consider not only cost and energy density, but also important indicators including charge and discharge times, speed, and safety.

According to the industry’s opinion, the energy density of sodium batteries (generally less than 120Wh/kg) is significantly lower than that of lithium iron phosphate batteries (160Wh/kg) and ternary batteries. Therefore, the demand for new energy vehicle batteries is low, and there is no substitute for lithium batteries to become power. Possibility of mainstream technology in the field.

At the same time, the actual production cost of current sodium batteries does not have significant advantages.

Zeng Yuqun also publicly stated that the sodium batteries of CATL were not cheap as soon as they came out, because the current supply chain is very small and the cost is more expensive than lithium batteries.

"Although the use of relatively cheap metals can reduce the cost of raw materials, low energy density means more auxiliary materials and manufacturing costs. From the current point of view, we believe that the substitution of sodium batteries for lithium batteries is actually very weak. Considering that sodium reserves are more abundant than lithium, the strategic significance of sodium batteries as a technical reserve and ensuring energy security should be emphasized, but its commercial value should not be overestimated.

"Northeast Securities said in the research report.

In fact, Chaowei Group has already established a joint venture with General Electric to produce sodium salt batteries, which are mainly used as energy storage batteries.

However, there are also many problems in the promotion of energy storage batteries, such as demand, industrial support, and related patent evaluations.

Therefore, nano-batteries may be the future trend, but they will not be used on a large scale in the short term. For lithium batteries, they can only be partially replaced.