New Japanese technology: Li-ion battery mass production cost can be reduced by 90%

Lithium-ion batteries play a central role in the scientific and technological world, powering various devices such as smartphones and smart cars. A Japanese battery developer said that he has a way to reduce the mass production cost of lithium batteries by 90%, while significantly improving its safety.

Hideaki Horie, who was responsible for battery research at Nissan Motor Co., established APB, a Tokyo-based company, in 2018 to produce "all polymer batteries."

Prior to this, Nissan had licensed an advanced technology to APB to produce this battery. Nissan began to develop lithium-ion batteries in the early 1990s, launched the Prairie Joy EV in 1997, and became a pioneer in installing lithium-ion batteries in commercial electric vehicles.

Earlier this year, APB won the awards including builder Obayashi Corp., industrial equipment manufacturer Yokogawa Electric Corp. and carbon fiber producer Teijin Ltd. Supported by a group of Japanese companies.

In March this year, APB raised 8 billion yen (US$74 million). Although this amount of money seems insignificant, it is enough to provide a full set of equipment for a factory that will begin mass production next year. Horie estimates that its plant in central Japan will have an installed capacity of 1 billion watt-hours by 2023.

Lower cost, larger capacity

"The problem with manufacturing lithium batteries now is that its device production is similar to semiconductors," Hideaki Horie said in an interview. "Our goal is to make it more like steel production."

The basic unit of the battery-the manufacture of battery cells is a complex process that needs to be completed under clean room conditions-requires humidity control and continuous air filtration to prevent contamination of highly reactive materials. The conditions are so severe that top battery companies like LG Chem in South Korea, Ningde Times in China, and Matsushita Electric in Japan need to spend billions of dollars to build factories.

Horie’s innovation is to replace the basic components of the battery with a resin structure-metal-lined electrodes and liquid electrolyte, thereby improving safety and reducing costs. He said that this method greatly simplifies and speeds up the production process, as easy as "butter spreading bread".

The front and back of the new battery unit are made of polymer current collectors. The front and back have negative or positive polarity, respectively, and form part of the battery case. The 10-meter-long cells can be stacked "like a cushion" to increase capacity.

Increased safety

Lithium-ion batteries have come a long way since they were first commercialized nearly thirty years ago. Compared with ten years ago, they have a longer service life, more power, and a 85% cost reduction, making them the main force driving the increasingly powerful internal functions of smartphones and tablets.

But safety is still a problem, from Tesla (Tesla Inc.) cars to Boeing (Boeing Co.) Dreamliner and Samsung Electronics (Samsung Electronics Co.) smartphones, batteries have always been the culprit causing fire The culprit."

Hideyori Horie said: "From a physics point of view, lithium-ion batteries are the best heaters created by mankind."

However, the resin battery has fire resistance when punctured. In traditional batteries, a puncture will generate hundreds of thousands of amps of surge, which is several times the current of ordinary households. The temperature will rise to 700 degrees Celsius. The APB battery uses a so-called bipolar design, which eliminates the current power bottleneck and allows the entire surface of the battery to absorb surges, thereby avoiding this catastrophic situation.

"Due to many accidents, safety has always been the top priority in the industry," said Mitalee Gupta, a senior analyst at the Wood Mackenzie energy storage team. "If the company can scale up quickly, this is a breakthrough for storage and electric vehicle applications."

Not perfect focus on fixed battery field

But this technology is not without its shortcomings. Menahem Anderman, president of California-based consulting company Total Battery Consulting Inc., believes that polymers are less conductive than metals, which may seriously affect the battery's carrying capacity.

He said that a disadvantage of the bipolar design is that the battery cells are connected back-to-back in the battery, making it difficult to control individual cells. He also questioned whether the cost savings were sufficient to compete with existing companies. "Lithium ion liquid electrolyte will remain the main application in the next 15 years or more," he said.

Hideaki Horie admitted that APB cannot compete with battery giants that have invested billions of dollars and benefited from economies of scale. APB will not focus on the "Red Sea" of the automotive industry, but will focus on fixed batteries used in buildings, offices and power plants.