Although the popularity of the sodium-ion battery industry has risen sharply recently, there are still certain bottlenecks in its industrialization. Among them, the negative electrode material is a key link restricting its industrialization, the main reasons are:
1) Poor production process adaptability: different raw materials require different process adaptations, and the process adaptation is difficult;
2) The batch consistency of raw materials is poor: Different raw materials have different years, places of origin, and even different parts, which will affect the quality of hard carbon. For example, if the year and place of origin of coconut shell are different, the hard carbon obtained by using the inner and outer layers of coconut shell is also different. , batch consistency is difficult to guarantee;
3) The cost is high. Domestic hard carbon materials rely on imports from Japan, while the price of imported hard carbon materials is about 150,000-200,000/ton. If you choose foreign hard carbon products as the anode material for sodium-ion batteries, relatively mature lithium iron phosphate batteries will have no cost Advantages, thereby affecting the industrialization process of sodium-ion batteries.
There are various precursor routes, and the biomass precursor route is leading.
There are mainly two routes of anode materials for sodium ion batteries: hard carbon materials and soft carbon materials, among which hard carbon materials are the mainstream route. There are various routes for hard carbon precursors, which can be divided into biomass, resins, chemical raw materials, etc. Among them, biomass precursors have become the mainstream precursor route because of their wide range of sources and high cost performance. The production process of biomass precursors is less difficult, but it is more difficult to screen suitable precursors and stabilize batch supply. In addition, there is currently a resin and anthracite mixed hard carbon research and development technology. This technology has good product performance, low cost, and stable supply. It is expected to become one of the mainstream application technology routes in the market in the future.
The performance of China's hard carbon products is expected to catch up with overseas in the short term
From the perspective of parameters, the current parameters of domestic hard carbon materials are comparable to those of foreign hard carbon materials, but according to the feedback of test results from domestic battery companies, the cycle stability and rate performance of foreign hard carbon materials are better. Although the performance of domestic hard carbon anode materials is relatively weak at present, the cost advantage of domestic products is obvious. In addition, domestic enterprises are closer to customers. Domestic enterprises are expected to accelerate the technology research and development of hard carbon products, and the performance of domestic hard carbon products is expected to catch up with foreign hard carbon products. performance.
China's hard carbon products have obvious cost advantages and are expected to break the situation of dependence on imports
In terms of cost, the cost advantage of domestic hard carbon is obvious. The cost of domestic low-capacity hard carbon products is 30,000-40,000 yuan/ton, and the cost of high-capacity hard carbon products is 50,000-60,000 yuan/ton. At present, domestic hard carbon products are mainly high-capacity products, and the cost of foreign hard carbon products is 3-4 times that of domestic products. From a cost point of view, sodium-ion batteries mainly focus on low-cost advantages. In the future, the anodes of sodium-ion batteries will be dominated by domestic hard carbon products, which is expected to break the situation of relying on imports of hard carbon anode materials.
With the gradual decline in the cost of hard carbon anode materials and the continuous development of technology, it is expected to promote the industrialization of sodium-ion batteries. Na-ion batteries are expected to usher in GWh-level shipments in 2023, driving China's hard carbon anode materials to break through kiloton shipments.