China's lithium battery industry is already number one in the world!

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to American scientists John Goodenough, Stanley Whittingham and Japanese scientist Yoshino Akira for their contributions to the development of lithium-ion batteries. Lithium batteries, a lightweight, rechargeable and powerful battery, have changed people's lives and made it possible to build a society with zero fossil fuel use.

Who would have thought that Japan, which was the first to industrialize lithium-ion batteries in 1991, would continue to shrink, while China has gradually made this industry the world's number one. What happened in between? Lithium-ion batteries have created a new rechargeable world for mankind, and the "Electric China" plan built on lithium-ion batteries is helping us get rid of our dependence on fossil fuels.

However, lithium-ion batteries are now facing many practical challenges. Safety accidents occur from time to time, the battery life is limited, and the energy density is close to the upper limit. Where will lithium-ion batteries go in the future? Faced with new battery forces such as solid-state batteries, sodium-ion batteries, and hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells, which one will be the ultimate battery of the future?

As early as 2001, automotive power lithium batteries were not favored by everyone. Chen Liquan, who was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, asked Wan Gang, who was then the head of the 863 Plan's major electric vehicle project, "I hope to give lithium-ion batteries a chance." Ten years later, he successfully industrialized the once marginalized and unpopular discipline of lithium battery material research, solved the scientific, technological and engineering problems of large-scale production of lithium-ion batteries, and achieved a major transformation of lithium-ion batteries from "Made in China" to "Made in China", helping my country's lithium battery industry to go from running side by side to leading, and surpassing traditional lithium battery powers such as Japan and South Korea. In 2007, Chen Liquan won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Battery Materials Association. His research on all-solid-state lithium batteries, lithium-sulfur batteries, lithium-air batteries, room-temperature sodium-ion batteries, etc. laid the foundation for the development of next-generation power batteries and energy storage batteries.

The winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry are Whittingham (Stanley Whittingham), Goodenough (John Goodenough) and Japanese scientist Akira Yoshino (Akira Yoshino). The contributions of these three people are different.

Professor Stanley Whittingham actually started out researching superconducting materials. He didn't do much work on superconducting materials, but he discovered that titanium sulfide can be made into lithium-titanium sulfide batteries, with lithium as the negative electrode. The safety of this type of battery is relatively poor, and later a Japanese lady's face was burned due to a safety accident, so the company was shut down.

Later, John Goodenough synthesized a compound called lithium cobalt oxide. Lithium cobalt oxide is a layered compound that can be used as a lithium source for lithium-ion batteries. Its structure is stable. This is Goodenough's contribution. After reading Goodenough's 1978 article, Yoshino Akira thought of a way to use it to make a battery. Its negative electrode does not use metallic lithium, but carbon fiber as the negative electrode. This kind of battery is later called a lithium-ion battery.

In fact, lithium-ion batteries have changed the world. The biggest change is that they have brought a lot of convenience to our daily lives. The Nobel Prize statement said that from consumer electronics such as smartphones and laptops to electric vehicles and large energy storage devices such as wind and solar energy, lithium-ion batteries have become an indispensable source of energy in our lives. I have been dealing with lithium batteries for about 40 years. Today, I would like to share with you the topic of lithium batteries and "Electric China".

1How did my country's lithium battery industry become the world's number one?

Judging from the ranking of global electric vehicle battery companies' market share in 2018, CATL ranked first among the top 10, followed by Japan's Panasonic in second place and BYD in third place, a total of 10. In 2018, six Chinese lithium battery companies ranked in the top ten in the world market share of power batteries. CATL ranked first with 37.23%, while Japan's Panasonic ranked second with only 21.54%, but the gap was more than ten percentage points.

Why is China's lithium-ion battery production ranked first in the world? Let's start from the beginning.

China's lithium battery research was not late, and it was almost in sync with the world. Before Christmas in 1976, the Academy of Sciences sent me to West Germany. At that time, Germany had not yet been unified, and East Germany and West Germany were separated. I went to the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, West Germany for further studies. At that time, I soon discovered that everyone in the institute was studying the properties of lithium nitride crystals. I was very surprised. Why were they so interested in lithium nitride? At that time, I learned that lithium nitride is an ion-conducting material, and it is said to be a conductor called superion, which can be used as a car battery. After hearing this, I immediately thought about whether I should change my direction.

Their research institute had an open office. One day, it was open to the public. They put lithium nitride, a small button-like battery, on the table, and a lead-acid battery next to it. I saw that a lead-acid battery was very heavy, while a button battery was very light. I thought this thing was indeed very useful, so I immediately reported to the institute in China, saying that I wanted to change my career from crystal growth to a new discipline called solid ionics. About a month later, the institute wrote back to me, allowing me to change my career. After returning to China, the Academy of Sciences was very supportive of giving this project to the Institute of Physics, saying that a research laboratory should be built for this young man, so a solid ionics laboratory was quickly established. This was the first solid ionics laboratory in China at the time, and it was also the smallest laboratory in the Institute of Physics. My work was on lithium ion conductors and lithium batteries.

After Sony announced the industrialization in 1991, the Institute of Physics quickly followed suit. At that time, we were thinking about how to take the first step towards industrialization. Our research unit turns money into knowledge, while the investment unit turns technology into money. How to turn knowledge into technology, that is, how to connect them. We proposed an idea, that is, whether we can find a way to let the research unit take a few steps forward and the investment unit take a few steps forward, so that we can meet in the middle of the "bridge". So we found an investor and signed a research and development agreement for type A lithium-ion batteries in 1993. The investor provided 100,000 yuan in funding, and more importantly, sent three people. These three people gave us great support at the time, because at that time I was the only master's student in the laboratory and there was a shortage of manpower.

Soon in 1995, the first lithium battery was born in the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. At that time, the mobile phone was called a "big brother". Maybe those who are a little older know that a "big brother" is a mobile phone that looks like a brick. At that time, holding a "big brother" was a symbol of status. The A-type lithium-ion battery is the battery of the "big brother". After the appraisal by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it was considered that the level at that time reached the world's advanced level and could be further improved. This is how we turned knowledge into technology in the laboratory at that time and took this step.

There is a view that lithium batteries were invented by the Japanese. China is not good at lithium batteries, but is ahead in application. The Japanese definitely did not invent lithium-ion batteries, otherwise why would the Nobel Prize be given to two Americans and one Japanese? So it is not entirely correct to say that lithium-ion batteries were invented by the Japanese. It is correct to say that the Japanese were the first to industrialize lithium-ion batteries.

The picture shows the market share of lithium-powered batteries in China. Image source: China Economic Lecture Hall

We can see from this chart that the Japanese first announced industrialization in 1991, with a market share of 100%, and then it has been falling, and it is still falling now. Even Sony does not make lithium-ion batteries anymore, and its lithium-ion batteries are sold to another company. The Koreans and Chinese are moving up. By 2014, China's power battery and lithium battery market share had surpassed Japan and South Korea, ranking first in the world, and it is still rising.

Our lithium battery technology is good from the current development situation. In fact, it is a collaboration among academia, engineering and industry, and a joint effort between research institutes and universities. We attach great importance to original innovation, close integration of basic research and applied research, and accelerate the industrialization process of research results.

Goodenough discovered the commonly used positive electrode materials, lithium cobalt oxide and lithium iron phosphate, but both materials have shortcomings. Lithium cobalt oxide can actually only extract 0.5 moles of lithium, and lithium iron phosphate is actually an insulator, both of which have shortcomings. We found out its shortcomings, and then modified it through theoretical calculations and experiments and obtained a patent. This patent has played a very important role in the development of our lithium-ion batteries.