Prospects for my country's sodium-ion battery market in 2021

On May 21, 2021, Ningde Times Chairman Zeng Yuqun revealed at the company's shareholders meeting that the sodium battery will be announced around July this year, which quickly aroused heated discussions in the lithium battery circle. Prior to this, there have been companies at home and abroad that have been planning the industrialization of sodium ion batteries, such as my country's Zhongke Hai sodium, Xingkong sodium, and foreign FARADION. With the upcoming announcement of Ningde era sodium-ion battery products, sodium-ion batteries are expected to become a new outlet for the battery industry. Sodium ion batteries are mainly divided into four types. Among them, sodium-sulfur batteries and sodium-sodium chloride batteries are high-temperature sodium-ion batteries, and aqueous sodium-ion batteries and solvent-based sodium-ion batteries are normal temperature sodium-ion batteries. At present, the most important thing that has begun to be used in small batches is normal temperature sodium ion batteries, especially solvent-based sodium ion batteries. In terms of the industrial chain, the upstream positive and negative electrodes and electrolyte additives must cultivate new supply chains. The separators, current collectors, electrolyte solutes, and production lines can be shared with lithium-ion batteries; and downstream, it is important to replace lead-acid batteries, The market for lithium manganate batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries is mainly applied in electric two-wheeled vehicles, low-speed vehicles, energy storage, electric ships and electric tools. Sodium-ion batteries are currently in the demonstration application stage. For example, in June 2018, Zhongke Haina launched a low-speed electric vehicle driven by sodium-ion batteries (72V80Ah), and announced the 30kW/100kWh sodium-ion battery energy storage in March 2019 Power station. Due to the lack of a niche market and large-scale capital investment, the sodium-ion battery industry chain is still in its infancy, resulting in a small industrial market. The Lithium Battery Research Institute of Advanced Industry Research Institute believes that the important reasons for the lack of large-scale application of sodium-ion batteries are: (1) Sodium-ion batteries do not have obvious price advantages relative to lithium-ion batteries at this stage. (2) Sodium ion batteries have energy density disadvantages related to lithium ion batteries (lithium iron phosphate batteries and lithium manganate batteries). (3) As the sodium-ion battery industry chain is not mature enough, the formulation of sodium-ion batteries has not undergone enough iterations, the performance potential is not sufficiently tapped, and there are many potential performance defects. (4) Due to user inertia and path dependence, users are more willing to accept lithium-ion batteries with higher maturity. (5) In various subdivisions, sodium ion batteries have not shown irreplaceable performance. (6) There is no large-scale application of sodium-ion batteries, leading to the immature upstream supply chain of sodium-ion batteries, and sodium-ion batteries have not obtained obvious cost advantages. (7) Step-by-step utilization of lithium-ion batteries from the recycling of waste lithium-ion batteries is cheap, and the supply continues to increase, further reducing the market possibility of sodium-ion batteries. The most mature technical route currently mainstream in China is: the positive electrode is sodium transition metal oxide, the transition metal is copper-iron-manganese or nickel-iron-manganese, the negative electrode is hard carbon or anthracite soft carbon, the electrolyte solute is sodium hexafluorophosphate, electrolyte The solvent is the same as the current lithium-ion battery solvent, and both the positive and negative current collectors are aluminum foil. The important competitive products of sodium-ion batteries are lithium manganate batteries, lithium iron phosphate batteries, lead-acid batteries, and cascaded lithium-ion batteries. By calculating the energy density difference between the positive and negative electrodes of sodium ions, it can be concluded that under the same technical conditions, the energy density of sodium ions is about 0.7-0.8 times the energy density of lithium manganate batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries. After comparing the performance of sodium ion batteries with lithium manganate batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries, the Lithium Battery Research Institute of Advanced Industrial Research Institute believes that the future application fields of sodium ion batteries are expected to be concentrated in the electric two-wheeler market, household energy storage, Low-speed vehicles and backup power and other fields. Comparison of the capacity and performance of sodium-ion batteries and lithium-ion batteries. Source: GGII Lithium Battery Research Institute (GGII). In May 2021, GGII released the 'Analysis of my country's Sodium-ion Battery Market Development Prospects in 2021' The 'Report' is a reflection of the actual results of GGII's visits and investigations in the past period of time. The report has done a comprehensive combing and in-depth research on my country's sodium ion batteries, and has mastered a large number of industry first-hand data.