Western media said that from Reno, Nevada, the United States, about a half-hour drive, a peculiar building presented before the eyes, the next decade is likely to become the determinant of technological trends. It consists of two factories built in the middle of the desert. It looks no different from any shopping center in the United States, but the appearance is always deceiving. In 2017, this building, which costs nearly 5 billion U.S. dollars, will become the world's largest battery manufacturing plant. When it reaches full capacity in 2020, it can produce 500,000 lithium batteries per year.
According to the May issue of the Spanish magazine "Fun", this is Tesla's first super battery factory called Gigafactory 1. Tesla, an electric vehicle manufacturer, has teamed up with Japan’s Matsushita to find solutions to the technical challenges that have plagued the world. After 25 years of lithium battery development, although the performance has been perfected to the extreme, there has been no further progress.
The report said that in the absence of other viable business options, Tesla's only way out is to increase battery production to meet the growing market demand for electric vehicles, and this is also important to reduce equipment costs. The capacity of the Tesla Super Battery Plant in the future will be equivalent to the global battery production in 2013. Tesla can therefore introduce the most economical electric car to date in the market.
Five challenges facing the battery in the future
cost. Material is only one of the factors that affect the final price of the product. The dangers of liquid electrolytes are very high for preservation and packaging, and transportation costs will therefore increase. The safest and most stable battery will reduce the cost of electric vehicles and complement the work of renewable energy in the power grid.
safety. Although the efficiency and reliability of the battery have been greatly improved over the past 30 years, it is still a dangerous device. If there is no proper protection during charging and discharging, the battery is still very flammable.
Quantity. The global capacity of battery manufacturing is approximately 35 gigawatt-hours per year. This figure still can not meet the needs of consumer electronics and electric vehicle manufacturers. If you want to achieve a complete transformation of the automobile industry park and allow lithium batteries to occupy a greater share of the power grid, you need to double production.
Recyclable. Lithium batteries will experience a decrease in performance after hundreds of charging and discharging processes. Lithium batteries can be recycled, but this is an expensive process and requires a professional workforce. If you want to reduce the harm of lithium batteries to the environment, the future development of lithium batteries must pay more attention to recycling this link.
performance. The energy density of lithium batteries is very low, close to 150-250 watt-hours per kilogram. In order to truly replace the fuel car, lithium batteries must increase in storage capacity.
Energy is the key to solving the cost of electric vehicles
According to reports, the biggest problem lies in the storage capacity of the battery. A lithium battery has a weight energy density of about 160 watt-hours per kilogram. The energy density of the most advanced lithium battery on the market can reach 250 watts per kilogram, but the price is not cheap. As an electric vehicle driver, if he wants to stop worrying about battery life in the future, he must increase the battery's storage capacity to at least 350 watt-hours per kilogram. If not, the only option is to prepare batteries and increase vehicle weight, or to increase the cost and time for battery charging.
Lithium is still the most tempting material for a qualitative leap. Therefore, all laboratories are concentrating on three things: improving the positive electrode material technology; improving the negative electrode material technology; obtaining a more effective electrolytic solution; if possible, using a solid electrolyte to improve the safety of the battery and the capacity of the device.
Silicon and Graphene: New Energy Point
Regarding the battery cathode material, the most promising one is to replace the graphite with a silicon structure. Each gram of silicon absorbs 10 times more lithium ions than graphite material during charging, but the problem is that a greater amount of absorption means a greater amount of diffusion. Stanford University is experimenting with the use of nano-silicon structures, which can be controlled to spread, but it still needs years of research to get into commercialization.
Another option is to use graphene, which the scientific community has been talking about, instead of graphite as a cathode material. This "miracle" material consists of pure carbon. The graphene cathode composed of multiple layers and one atomic thickness absorbs a larger amount of ions, so that a double battery capacity can be produced at the same weight. However, this material still has some of the same difficult problems that today's graphite batteries have. Carbon is not an ideal material for the charging process.
The replacement of negative materials has achieved better results. Through some nanomaterials, multiple laboratories have achieved a more effective way to shorten the distance that ions flow between positive and negative pole pieces, thereby increasing the charging speed.
Electrolyte: Stepping from Liquid to Solid
But the biggest change in batteries in the future will be the creation of new electrolytic solutions. Stepping from a liquid to a solid electrolytic solution will make the battery safer. This can not only greatly increase the battery capacity, but also complete the charging in a shorter time. Some companies have started to produce such solid-state batteries, and some have entered the stage of commercial promotion.
Blue Indy, a car rental company based in Paris, offers electric car rental services using solid-state batteries. Solid-state batteries are still expensive to manufacture, and any solid-state material currently cannot prove to be superior to liquid batteries in efficiency, and some solid materials are also limited by temperature.
One of the most promising research directions is ceramic materials. The University of Maryland has developed a high conductivity method that can produce more lightweight and efficient batteries. Eric Waksman, professor of engineering at the university, pointed out that the battery of this material is safer and meets the market requirements for the transition from fuel vehicles to electric vehicles. The University of Maryland’s research program has attracted many organizations including NASA. NASA believes it can solve the problem of energy storage in future space missions.
A battery with a larger capacity and a shorter charging time will revolutionize transportation and consumer electronic products, but its greatest impact is in the field of renewable energy. With the decreasing cost of photovoltaic and wind power generation, the use of renewable energy sources is gaining popularity in the world.
Wind power and solar panels can generate electricity intermittently, supplementing the grid when electricity demand is low. Nighttime is usually the peak of people's electricity. During such periods, it is still necessary to rely on the power provided by power stations with oil and gas energy or nuclear energy as the main energy source. A battery that can be charged at a high speed and has a higher energy density can make up for defects in the power system and store electricity during the day for people to use at night. (Compilation / Wang Meng)
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