Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery

Can the breakthrough of Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery technology bring good news to the battery industry?

When it comes to batteries, everyone is familiar with them. Various consumer electronic products such as mobile phones and tablets used in daily life, as well as industrial-grade electronic products and power generation devices, need batteries to store energy and realize power supply functions. Even with such a great function, batteries are still the unknown behind those bright and beautiful products, and the battery market is also a calm scene.

Until November 16, 2017, Fisker released a message saying that "the company has applied for a Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery patent this week." It is reported that this Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery can increase the range of electric vehicles to an astonishing 804 kilometers, and the charging time only takes 1 minute! The company also claimed that it will launch this battery technology in January 2018. Compared with the current maximum range of electric vehicle batteries of more than 300 kilometers and charging takes dozens of minutes or even hours, the advent of Fisker's Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery technology is indeed as shocking as "thunder from the plain"!

The existing lithium battery technology has serious shortcomings, and the performance of battery companies has been frustrated.

Currently, the largest battery used on the market is the lithium battery, which can not only be used for small consumer electronic products with a huge audience, such as mobile phones, PCs, etc., but also can be used to power cars, which is commonly known as power lithium batteries. For the vast majority of mobile phone consumers, battery life is one of the main issues they consider when buying a mobile phone. Even if the battery life is not strong enough, they can use a power bank to make up for it, especially the current "charge for five minutes, talk for two hours" technology can basically meet the needs of consumers. But it is different in the automotive field. Long charging time and short driving range have always been obstacles to the rapid expansion of the electric vehicle market. No consumer can endure the torment of driving for two hours and charging for 50 minutes.

It is no coincidence that the Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery technology developed by Fisker has caused a sensation. Fisker's technical announcement stated that "due to advances in materials and manufacturing, the cost of Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery technology is only 1/3 of the estimated cost of conventional lithium batteries in 2020." This is the focus of market participants. According to the "2017-2022 China Power Lithium Battery Industry Market Demand Forecast and Investment Strategy Planning Analysis Report" released by the Forward Industry Research Institute, my country's power lithium battery companies have been experiencing a "cold winter" in performance since 2017. Although the revenue of most companies is growing, their profits are declining, and some companies have both revenue and profits declining!

Can the breakthrough of Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery technology bring good news to the battery industry?

As we all know, the positive electrode material of power lithium batteries is lithium ions, and lithium ions come from lithium mines. At present, the world's lithium mine reserves are limited and non-renewable. With the continuous expansion of lithium battery production capacity and a certain supply of lithium mine resources, the price of lithium battery materials has soared all the way; on the other hand, in the downstream new energy vehicles of the lithium battery industry, factors such as the state's subsidies for electric vehicles and the promotion of corporate entities have driven the sales of new energy vehicles to rise year by year, but the trend of rising sales has forced the price of automobile products to fall, and then the price of lithium battery finished products has also fallen. Companies caught between rising material costs and falling finished product prices are facing the same dilemma: shrinking profit margins! It is the power lithium battery that has created such a performance winter!

A road to a breakthrough is imperative

In order to break the shackles of limited resources and high material costs inherent in lithium-ion batteries, battery research institutions, experts, scholars and corporate entities in various countries are seeking new battery technologies or products that can replace existing lithium batteries in terms of material costs and performance, and the road to a breakthrough is gradually opening up.

Solar cell applications are expanding, and the commercialization trend is clear

Before pure electric vehicles entered the public eye, solar cars were once considered one of the most promising types of cars in the future. However, the current solar cell technology still cannot meet the needs of automobile use. It is mainly restricted by the fact that solar energy is easily affected by sunlight conditions, geographical location and angle, resulting in low conversion efficiency, and the energy storage provided cannot meet the power requirements of high-power electric vehicles. However, solar cells can now be used in the energy storage and charging fields of automotive electrical equipment. In August 2017, Alta Equipment and Audi started cooperation in the field of solar cells. The two parties will develop the Audi/Hanergy thin-film solar cell R&D project.

Sodium-ion battery technology is available

On October 9, 2017, a materials science research team led by famous Chinese materials scientists Bao Zhennan and Cui Yi successfully developed a new type of sodium-ion battery cathode material. This material has extremely high battery capacity and greatly increased cycle life, and is expected to replace lithium-ion batteries, which are expensive due to limited mineral resource reserves. It is reported that in terms of battery capacity and material cost, this sodium-ion battery is better than lithium-ion batteries.

Can the breakthrough of Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery technology bring good news to the battery industry?

Note: Based on the overall cost of lithium-ion batteries, the overall cost of sodium-ion batteries is only about 80% of that of lithium-ion batteries.

However, according to the research team, sodium-ion battery technology is still in the laboratory stage, and there are still many technical problems that need to be solved and improved. It is still a long way from truly going to the market for commercialization. In any case, sodium-ion batteries still have the possibility of replacing lithium-ion batteries in the future.

Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery technology has achieved a breakthrough, and commercial prospects are promising

As mentioned above, although we have initially mastered the technology of solar cells, solar cells still have too many uncertainties; although we have mastered the technology of sodium-ion batteries and know that it has more perfect performance than lithium-ion batteries, it is still too far from commercial operation. With the breakthrough of Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery technology, it has higher feasibility and is therefore favored by the market. Fisker's application for a Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery technology patent also marks that Fisker is at the forefront of the world in the field of power batteries. However, Fisker, who is at the peak of battery technology, is not alone. According to objective data, many institutions or market players in the world have made arrangements in the research and development of Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery technology.

Figure 3: Research and development layout of Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery technology by domestic and foreign research institutions and corporate entities

Can the breakthrough of Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery technology bring good news to the battery industry?

The implementation of any technology requires the active layout of the country and the main market participants-enterprises. Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery technology has greater battery life, charging and cost advantages than existing lithium battery technology, which means that it has greater commercial prospects. Driven by national research institutions and corporate entities, the commercial prospects of Nickel Hydride No. 5 battery technology are worth looking forward to!

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