[이코노믹리뷰=박민규 기자] On the 19th, the all-solid-state battery, called the’dream cell’, is being re-examined as the discussion about the all-solid-state battery came out at the’The Future of Battery Technology’ webinar (webinar) in which world-class scholars participated as speakers.
The commercialization of all-solid-state batteries is still a distant story. However, leading battery and finished car makers have already entered the competition for preoccupation in related markets. Based on the sales volume of automobiles, Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, has declared that it will unveil a prototype of an electric vehicle equipped with an all-solid battery in December. This is about four years earlier than Hyundai Motor predicted.
The market, which has yet to be substantive, is heated by Toyota’s declaration of propaganda.
Moreover, considering that humanity’s dream is not just for electric cars, but for self-driving cars beyond that, it is predicted that the competition over the all-solid-state battery market will continue to the era of autonomous driving.
It is necessary to point out why all-solid-state batteries are attracting attention as a game changer in the future automotive industry.
“I’m solid”
According to the industry on the 23rd, the all-solid battery is a concept that converts an electrolyte, one of the core components of a lithium-ion battery, from liquid to solid.
There are two main reasons for solidifying the electrolyte of a lithium-ion battery. This is because an all-solid-state battery can hold both rabbits for stability and energy density.
First, lithium-ion batteries dominate the current battery market, but safety issues are pointed out as a risk. This is because a liquid electrolyte is applied to the battery, so if expansion due to temperature change or leakage due to external shock occurs, it sometimes leads to explosion and fire. On the other hand, an all-solid battery with a solid electrolyte is structurally hard and stable, and its shape can be maintained even if the electrolyte is damaged, so its stability is high.
In addition, the all-solid-state battery is easy to improve the driving distance of an electric vehicle, that is, the energy density of a battery for an electric vehicle.
A lithium-ion battery has a separate membrane that prevents contact between the anode and the cathode, and in the case of an all-solid battery, a solid electrolyte can even serve as a separator. Since the risk of explosion and fire of the battery disappears with the solid electrolyte itself, the energy density of the battery can be increased by filling an active material that can increase the capacity of the battery, instead of reducing safety-related parts including separators.
Furthermore, an analysis suggests that all-solid-state batteries are directly connected to the advent of the autonomous driving era. Self-driving cars are expected to rapidly increase power consumption as they transmit and receive information and give orders in real time. This is why it is estimated that battery capacity expansion will continue to be required in the future car era.
According to Finnish software (SW) company Tussera, the amount of data used by self-driving cars per day amounts to 11 terabytes (TB). This is a huge scale considering that an average of 45TB of data is generated per day at a semiconductor factory the size of four soccer fields.
Journey to Find’Absolute Battery’
All-solid-state batteries are still in the R&D stage, but a number of global battery and finished vehicle companies have already started to build a preemptive alliance front.
German automakers BMW and Volkswagen plan to develop all-solid-state batteries in cooperation with US battery startups Solid Power and Quantumscape, respectively, and launch electric vehicles equipped with them in 2025 or 2026.
Quantumscape, which was famous for the investment of Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft (MS) in the United States, devoted about 10 years to all-solid battery R&D, and is known to have more than 200 related patents as of November last year. In addition, Quantumscape revealed that it developed an all-solid-state battery that can charge 80% in 15 minutes in December 2020.
In the case of Solid Power, in addition to BMW, it has succeeded in attracting investments from US automakers Ford and Korea’s Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motors.
Chinese electric car maker Nio, rising as the’second Tesla’, is developing an electric car equipped with an all-solid battery with Taiwanese battery maker Prologeum, and Taiwan, the largest smart device consignment manufacturer of Apple’s IT dinosaur. Foxconn is also developing an all-solid-state battery with the aim of launching in 2024.
In the case of the all-solid-state battery industry, Japan’s ambition is particularly visible. Toyota, which is currently considered the most advanced player in the all-solid-state battery field, launched a battery research center as early as 2008, announced that it will develop all-solid-state batteries in partnership with the local government and academia. Established a joint venture for battery electric vehicle development. Toyota now has an ambition to mass-produce the world’s first all-solid-state battery. In addition, several Japanese companies such as Kyocera, Toray, Murata, Sumitomo Chemical, and Hitachi have started developing all-solid-state batteries.
In the case of Japan, it is actively investing in the development of all-solid-state batteries not only for electric vehicles, but also for all industries, and it is analyzed that this is a move to regain the leadership of the global battery market lost to Korea and China. Until the mid-2000s, Japan’s Sony and Sanyo dominated the global battery market, but since Samsung SDI, LG Energy Solutions, and China’s CATL aggressively expanded their battery production facilities, Japanese battery makers currently have a market share of less than 3rd place. It has been pushed back to.
In Korea, while Kia and Hyundai Motors began developing their own all-solid-state batteries from 2017, the possibility of these companies working with three battery companies such as Samsung SDI, LG Energy Solution, and SK Innovation is also discussed. In fact, it is known that Hyundai Motor Company executives visited the Samsung SDI plant in Cheonan, Chungcheongnam-do in May of last year, and discussed the direction and status of the development of all-solid-state batteries for electric vehicles.
Domestic battery makers are also citing all-solid batteries as the next generation battery. LG Energy Solution aims to develop all-solid-state battery samples by 2025, and Samsung SDI, which has previously introduced mid- to long-term all-solid-state battery development plans at battery-related exhibitions since 2013, has set the timing of mass production of its all-solid-state batteries after 2027. have.
In particular, it is explained that Samsung SDI has entered the stage of developing all-solid-state battery elements and has prototypes inside the company. In addition to its own all-solid-state battery R&D, Samsung SDI is conducting a joint development project for all-solid-state battery technology with Samsung Electronics Institute of Technology.
Specifically, the Samsung Electronics Advanced Institute of Technology has developed an all-solid-state battery capable of driving 800 km (km) and charging and discharging more than 1000 times per charge through original technology that can increase the life and stability of the all-solid battery while reducing its size in half. They also published research results that can be made.
An official from Samsung SDI said, “(Samsung SDI) confirmed the possibility of developing a high-safety, high-energy-density (all-solid-state) battery by integrating new materials such as solid electrolytes developed independently. ) We are developing mass production technology, and we are preparing to apply it to actual products.”
The key is’commercialization’
Apart from the expected growth of the all-solid-state battery industry, it is diagnosed that the development of all-solid-state batteries in Korea is still only in the early stages of publishing papers.
The domestic battery industry is concentrating on the fact that there has not yet been a solid-state battery that can replace lithium-ion batteries, and that the price, life, and energy density of all-solid-state batteries are not commercially viable. The dominant view is that mass production of all-solid-state batteries in Korea will be practically possible only after 2025.
Research Fellow Lee Young-jin of the Korea Industrial Bank (KDB) Future Strategy Research Institute said, “(Battery) experts consider that it will take 4-5 years to solve the technical problem of all-solid-state batteries and 2-3 years to develop mass production technology. It is expected that the solid-state battery market will be formed in earnest in 2030,” he said. He predicted that all-solid-state batteries will be gradually commercialized, mainly for large vehicles such as buses, nine years later.
In fact, in the case of an all-solid-state battery, there are many technical challenges to overcome. Typically, it is pointed out that the solid electrolyte has a slower moving speed of lithium ions than the liquid electrolyte, and thus the battery output is inevitably lowered. In order to improve such low ionic conductivity, studies on various solid electrolytes such as oxides, polymers, and sulfides are being conducted, but it is known that there is still a difference in performance from liquid electrolytes.
In addition, research fellow Lee Young-jin predicted that “the existing lithium-ion battery market is continuously expanding, and the battery improvement is also continuously being made, so it will be difficult to change the paradigm around all-solid batteries in a short period of time.”
In the midst of this, as the rumors that a technology that can accelerate the commercialization of all-solid-state batteries has been developed, expectations from inside and outside the battery industry are rising again.
The Korea Institute of Electrical Engineers (KERI) announced on the 22nd that a research team led by Dr. Yoon-cheol Ha of the Next-Generation Battery Research Center has developed the world’s first new technology for mass-synthesizing a sulfide-based solid electrolyte for an all-solid battery using the’coprecipitation method’ at low cost. .
The sulfide-based solid electrolyte, which is one of the most attention-grabbing solid electrolytes at present, has the advantage of easy manufacturing of electrode plates and separators due to its high ductility and high ionic conductivity. The use of the ball mill method, which costs a lot of money, has been considered as a disadvantage. For this reason, it is explained that sulfide-based solid electrolytes are only produced in small quantities, and their price is also millions of won per 100 grams (g).
However, the research team succeeded in developing a breakthrough process technology capable of mass-producing sulfide-based solid electrolytes in a single solution synthesis without the use of expensive lithium sulfide.
Dr. Ha said, “Japan is currently preoccupying the original material technology in the field of sulfide-based all-solid-state batteries. Our country must respond to (Japan and all-solid-state battery markets, etc.) I do” he said. He added, “(KERI) will transfer the technology developed this time to companies in the future to expand and mass-produce the sulfide-based solid electrolyte process line.”
Voices gather that the key to the current Korean all-solid-state battery industry clock is to accelerate commercialization. In addition, it is pointed out that it is important to develop a manufacturing process that not only improves core materials, but also enables the current lithium-ion battery production line to be used for all-solid-state batteries.
“In the case of a sulfide-based all-solid battery, which is evaluated as the closest to commercialization, it is difficult to achieve sufficient performance with the current wet process technology, and when applying a dry process, a large-scale facility that introduces facilities that can treat toxic sulfur compounds,” Lee said. Investment is necessary.”
On the other hand, as the importance of the safety of electric vehicle batteries emerged due to the successive fire accidents of Hyundai Motor Company’s Kona EV in the second half of last year, some say that the transition to an all-solid battery could be accelerated.