"No negative battery" comes out or will subvert electric cars and cell phone batteries

December 23, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) achieved a breakthrough in battery technologies, its newly developed "no negative battery" or will subvert the more than 20 years of the traditional lithium battery industry, and is expected to be put into use in the next 1-2 years, so that smartphones become thin like cards, Cell phone standby time and electric car mileage turned over and the battery price became lower.

It is reported that this third-generation lithium battery uses a thin to almost no metal cathode and more safe electrolyte. According to the US authority's independent battery testing laboratory A123 This October, its 2Ah product prototype has an energy density of 1337 watts per liter (wh/l), more than twice times the current energy density of Apple, Samsung, Millet and Tesla batteries, a result that has broken through the world's highest record, Also won a series of well-known scientific and technological innovation awards including the American R&d100 Award (Oscar for Scientific and technological Innovation) and the Department of Energy Clean Energy Award.

The technology was developed by Dr. Hu Qicho of MIT and Donald Saidwil, a professor at the school, and two scientists led an MIT start-up team to form the Massachusetts Solid Energy Company (Solidenergy) to promote the commercialization of scientific and technological achievements, and access to the MIT-related patents of the global exclusive right to use. The company received $4.5 million in a round of financing in 2013, including Temasek in Singapore.

According to Citigroup's latest report, the global rechargeable lithium-ion battery market in 2014 amounted to $21 billion trillion, 12 billion of which came from consumer electronics, and 3.5 billion from electric cars. Conservatively, the global rechargeable lithium-ion battery market reached $35 billion trillion in 2020, including 14.7 billion of dollars from consumer electronics, and 10 billion from electric cars, an average annual growth of 10%. As more and more people use smart hardware, the actual lithium-ion battery market will be far greater than this conservative estimate.

Professor Donald Saidwil, a world-renowned battery expert, is one of the world's most influential 100 people in the 2012 times, and his previous battery program was backed by Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman. Dr. Hu Qicho, who graduated from Harvard University, is one of 30 outstanding scientists under 30 years of age who was named by Forbes in 2012.

According to the DOE's definition, the first generation lithium batteries use graphite anode, up to the energy density of wh/l; The second generation lithium battery uses a silicon negative electrode, the highest can obtain the energy density about wh/l; the first and second generations are traditional lithium-ion batteries. The third generation lithium battery will use the higher energy density of the metal cathode even without cathode, can exceed 1000 wh/l energy density.

Experts say that despite the rapid advances in technology over the past 20 years, the size of computers has shrunk dramatically, and now the computational power of new smart watches is greater than that of the Apollo spacecraft, the most popular rechargeable battery technology has been stagnant.

"The process of electric vehicle industrialization depends largely on the progress of battery technology." The current world of battery technology innovation indicates that the process will accelerate, especially if the emergence of disruptive battery technology, the entire electric vehicle industry and business models are likely to occur unexpected changes, "The State Council Development Research Center Enterprise Research Institute deputy Director Zhang Yongwei said.

The battery is composed of four parts: positive, negative, electrolyte and diaphragm.

Most battery companies are concentrated on the production of cathode materials, and traditional consumer electronics typically use lithium cobalt oxide (LCO), which is high in energy density. The development and innovation cycle of cathode materials is very fast, with a 5% increase in energy density in general each year, but this innovation is very gradual and fragmented, and different applications and enterprises will choose a different positive pole.

"In the negative side, innovation is relatively difficult, and there is usually a big break from 10 to 20, which is why the battery is determined by the cathode," Dr. Hu Qicho said.

At present, the cathode is mainly graphite, the advantage is very mature and cheap, weak energy density is very low. In the cathode providers, there is little technical difference, mainly by reducing costs to compete. The electrolyte presents a very diverse and dispersed situation, but the differences between different products are very small. Some of the core technologies in the diaphragm are largely controlled by Japanese and American firms, with high profits, but their dominance and dominance are fading as advanced technology advances.

In order to promote core innovation in the battery industry, Solidenergy focused on developing a new generation of anode materials and matching them with different cathode materials, laying the foundation for large-scale popularization and use.

"In the future we want to be a provider of materials focused on battery cathode and electrolyte, and we are currently working with multiple battery companies and consumer electronics companies, including Apple and Samsung, to test battery material," Dr. Hu said.

"Before mass production, we still need to solve many manufacturing process problems, such as uniformity and purity." The main challenge is to ensure that the material remains the same purity and uniformity as the small size of the laboratory in mass production, "he added.

Solidenergy is now actively preparing, if all goes well, the fall of 2015 will launch the Consumer electronics battery materials, 2016, the introduction of electric vehicle battery materials, 2016, Solidenergy output can support 10 million smart phones and smart watches.