Chinas Lithium-Ion Battery Industry - Fixing Protection Considerations

You will discover rechargeable nimh batteries lots of features to Li-ion battery safety through its design and style procedures, such as risk-free battery construction, safe and sound raw elements, protecting capabilities and basic safety certifications. When interviewed by China Electronics Information, Mr Su Jinran, deputy chief engineer of Tianjin Lishen Battery Co Ltd, claimed that item safety commenced in product or service layout, therefore picking the appropriate electrode components, separators and electrolytes tend to be the initially precedence for safe battery style. For battery anode components, ternary components, manganese lithium and lithium iron phosphate, which have been extensively used in battery style and design and yielded satisfactory general performance, are more secure than regular lithium cobaltate and nickel lithium.

Su mentioned that at present, the R&D and manufacturing of anode, cathode and electrolyte products have established sufficient scales in China, basically capable of satisfying the layout and manufacturing requirements of Li-ion batteries. Furthermore, the research on some safe and sound coating supplies has started to be commercialized, providing a new aspect for improving Li-ion battery safety, but China still needs to invest much more and follow up on R&D and applications in this area.

An executive from the mobile energy business of Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd in China commented that when it comes to safety of Li-ion battery, all parts and products utilised for making the battery play important roles. They are therefore trying to put together parts and supplies to ensure its safety as a whole. Furthermore, in order to utilize parts and materials, it is important to employ advanced industrial production technologies and quality control technologies when thinking about protection improvement. "To further ensure Li-ion battery safety, we need to jointly consider batteries and the electronic equipment that use them. Meanwhile, the issue of battery basic safety has to be addressed by electronic equipment manufacturers and battery manufacturers together." said the executive.

Innovation-based standard setting

Due to the complexity in Li-ion battery security mechanism, especially the impact on basic safety after re-using the batteries, the process of understanding Li-ion battery basic safety and setting its standards should be gradual and progressive. And the development and application of external control techniques should also be considered. Su suggested that as setting Li-ion battery basic safety standards is a highly technical job, both standard setting professionals from battery standardisation bodies and technical specialists from the battery industry, users and electronic control areas should participate in the process, which includes experimental verification works.

Senior engineer from China Electronics Standardization Institute, Mr Sun Chuanhao, stated that Li-ion batteries currently could be divided into energy types and power types. As these two products have differences in components and design and style structures, their testing methods and requirements are dissimilar, even under the same protection conditions. The so-called portable batteries belong to the energy type, like Li-ion batteries employed in mobile phones, laptops, digital cameras and video cameras, while the power type battery is for power tools, electric bikes and electric vehicles. Sun suggested authorities should introduce separate Li-ion battery protection standards for these two distinctive types.

Many business experts agreed that standard setting of Li-ion battery in China should be built on the foundation of independent innovation, but also need to learn and refer to international standards such as IEC, IEEE and UL.

Li-ion battery for vehicle use

Because of its light weight and high energy density, Li-ion battery's application areas are expanding in China, and it is hoping that Li-ion technology could be heavily utilized in hybrid vehicles and electric vehicles, which could further increase Li-ion battery's market penetration. As a result, developing Li-ion batteries for vehicle use has become a focus for several Chinese Li-ion battery manufacturers. An analyst from China Academy of Sciences, Mr Huang Xuejie, pointed out that although China is now the second largest Li-ion manufacturing country only behind Japan, it is not yet a strong country in this field. Numerous small-size batteries in China are still produced manually, resulting in varied products quality and fierce price competition. Commercialisation of power type batteries is till at an early stage in China, and there is still a vacuum for Li-ion batteries which could last 15 years on hybrid electric cars, as well as their key products and technologies.

As there are high technical barriers for producing high end products such as vehicle-use Li-ion batteries, experts are calling for the cooperation between R&D, engineering technologies and management specialists. And in order to improve the technical level of China's battery sector, the government should also give assistance and establish expertise spreading mechanism for the sector.