1000Wh/kg, Germany announced that solid-state batteries will soon be mass-produced!

After one of them finished singing, another came on stage. In China, after the battery company Tailan New Energy announced that it had successfully produced the world's first automotive-grade 720Wh/kg all-solid-state battery, a team of German experts also made a stunning debut with an ultra-high energy density solid-state sodium-sulfur battery, and plans to land in China.

Energy density exceeds 1000Wh/kg

On April 5, local time, the "Invest in China" Germany special promotion event hosted by the Ministry of Commerce of China was held in Stuttgart. Ling Ji, Vice Minister of Commerce and Deputy Representative for International Trade Negotiations, and Huang Weiyang, Consul General in Frankfurt, attended and delivered speeches.

According to information from China News Network, at the promotion event, the German Research Association for the Promotion of Sustainable Physical Technologies announced that after nearly two years of research and development, a team of German experts has invented a complete set of high-performance and high-safety fully automatic continuous production processes for solid-state sodium-sulfur batteries, which can make the battery energy density exceed 1000Wh/kg and the theoretical loading capacity of the negative electrode is as high as 20,000Wh/kg.

Source: Ministry of Commerce official website

According to reports, this German patented process combines Germany's traditional advantages in high vacuum, full automation, nuclear physics, magnetic levitation and other technical fields, improves some misunderstandings in the current research and development of solid-state batteries, achieves many innovations and major breakthroughs in some technical shortcomings, and proposes new concepts such as ion printing and porous current collection. It can realize fully automatic continuous production of sodium-sulfur batteries in a full vacuum environment with low cost and high production capacity.

The overall design of the production process has been completed, and the company is cooperating with many universities in China and Germany to build a research and development center and a test production line. It is expected that equipment prototypes and battery samples will be available by the end of this year, and mass production capacity will be available by the end of 2025. The company also plans to cooperate with industrial funds and battery-related companies and invest in building a factory in China.

It is reported that the R&D team is led by Prof. Hartmut Frey, a well-known German nuclear physicist and energy expert, Prof. Engelbert Westkmper, a recipient of the German Grand Cross Medal, a member of the Academy of Engineering Sciences and an expert in automated production technology, and Ma Kanggan, a German-educated chemical engineering doctor and graphene and new materials expert.

China's solid-state battery market is booming

The news about the solid-state sodium-sulfur battery technology developed by a German team of experts has caused a huge uproar, bringing the already hot topic of solid-state batteries to another high point.

On April 2, Tailan New Energy announced that the company has made significant progress in the research and development of "automotive-grade all-solid-state lithium batteries ", and successfully produced the world's first automotive-grade single-cell capacity of 120Ah and an ultra-high energy density of 720Wh/kg, setting a new industry record for single-cell capacity and highest energy density of a single-cell lithium battery.

On April 3, NIO announced that its 150kWh ultra-long battery pack has officially entered mass production and is scheduled to be officially launched in the second quarter. The battery cell is provided by Weilan New Energy and has an energy density of 360Wh/kg.

On April 8, SAIC Motor's super smart sedan Zhiji L6 was officially unveiled, and it was the first to be equipped with the "first generation of light-year solid-state batteries". According to previous preheating information, this battery is the first generation of semi-solid-state battery products of Qingtao Energy, using nano-scale solid electrolytes to wrap ultra-high nickel positive electrodes and new generation high-energy silicon-carbon negative electrodes. The single-cell energy density reaches 368Wh/Kg, and the CLTC range will exceed 1,000km.

On April 9, Haobo brand under GAC Aion announced that Haobo's "all-solid-state battery" will be released on April 12.

The hot industrial chain has also driven the expansion of the solid-state battery concept. The stock prices of many listed companies have soared due to their involvement in the solid-state battery business. As of today's closing, Defu Technology and Xiangfenghua have risen by 20%, and Sanxiang New Materials, Fengyuan Shares , and Limin Shares have also risen by the daily limit.

Different opinions on the implementation of solid-state batteries

Last month (March), LG Energy Solution and Samsung SDI announced their plans for mass production of solid-state batteries. LG Energy Solution plans to achieve mass production of all-solid-state batteries in 2030; Samsung SDI disclosed its all-solid-state battery roadmap for the first time and said it will be put into mass production in 2027, with an energy density of 900Wh/L, which is about 40% higher than existing batteries.

As a result, many opinions have emerged in the market, believing that 2027 will be the mass production node for all-solid-state batteries, or even earlier. However, the industry has different views.

"The implementation of cutting-edge technology has to go through three routes, namely the technical route, the product route, and the commodity route. First, it depends on whether it is technically feasible and can be achieved; second, after it becomes a product, whether the safety, reliability, consistency, and quality can be guaranteed during the production process; third, whether it can be sold, because if it is too expensive, it may not be sold." Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL , said in response to investors' questions at the performance interpretation meeting in March.

At the same time, Zeng Yuqun pointed out that there are three technical routes for solid-state batteries, namely the oxide route, the sulfide route, and the polymer route. There are still many basic scientific problems to be solved, such as the order of magnitude difference between the ion diffusion rate in most solid electrolytes and liquid electrolytes, and the difficulty of maintaining good contact at the solid-solid interface. After breaking through these scientific and technological problems, there will be problems with industrialization.

In an exclusive interview with the Financial Times on March 28 local time, Zeng Yuqun was also asked about the industrialization of solid-state batteries. He once again emphasized that there are still many difficulties in bringing this (solid-state) battery to market, including durability and safety.

Obviously, CATL's view is that the commercialization time of solid-state batteries may not be as optimistic as the market expects. Therefore, the goal of the CATL research team is not solid-state batteries, but sodium-ion batteries and condensed state batteries using semi-solid materials, and its prototypes have been put into production.

At the OFweek 2024 Power Battery Industry Annual Meeting held on March 19 , Wu Fan, a doctoral supervisor at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that whether it is from the first industry-university-research joint platform for all-solid-state batteries or the national platform of "China All-Solid-State Battery Industry-University-Research Collaborative Innovation Platform" established in Beijing in January this year, it is basically recognized that sulfide all-solid-state batteries will begin to be mass-produced between 2027 and 2030, and the current forecast is a GWh-level scale.