Controversial Graphene Unveils "Concept"

A stone stirs waves.

Recently, a poster of gac-ea'an, a wholly-owned subsidiary of GAC group, put "graphene battery" on the forefront of public opinion. A series of operations, such as academicians' query, automobile enterprises' response and clarification, etc., have made public opinion ferment continuously, bringing "graphene" - a concept that can arouse heated discussion, attention and pursuit in the capital market every time it appears, back to the public's attention.

After the uproar, it is worth pondering whether graphene battery exists or not? Whose nerves did it stir? Is it an intentional gimmick or genuine black technology? What is the investment prospect behind the high attention of capital market to graphene concept? How far is the real graphene battery from landing and application?

The whole story of the dispute

On January 15, gac-ea'an released a new power battery technology poster, announcing its new power battery technology to be produced in mass production, including super fast charging, ultra long endurance and super safety. There are some technical breakthrough words: "80% full in 8 minutes", "1000 km of NEDC", and pointed out that "it is not necessary to wait until next year" and "it will be carried out in mass production".

As soon as the news came out, it hit the pain point of the current slow charging and short driving range of electric vehicles. At the same time, the superposition of the concept of "graphene" caused the pursuit of the capital market. On the same day, GAC's A-shares closed at 12.52 yuan / share, with a total transaction of 1.02 billion yuan; Hong Kong shares rose sharply at the end of the day, up 19.5% to HK $9.38/share; meanwhile, new energy vehicle concept stocks and graphene concept stocks rose one after another.

"If someone says that his car can run 1000 kilometers and charge in a few minutes, it is particularly safe, and the cost is very low, then you don't have to believe it, because it is impossible to achieve it at the same time at present." On January 16, Ouyang Minggao, vice chairman of China electric vehicle 100 people's Association and academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, said at the forum of China electric vehicle hundred people's Association (2021).

In this regard, on January 17, Gu Huinan, general manager of gac-ea New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., replied at the Forum: "academician Ouyang Minggao means that it is unrealistic to have fast charging, long service life and low price. We can also charge 1000 kilometers in 8 minutes, but we should also provide the corresponding charging pile. This year, GAC will definitely launch its 1000 km endurance (model) and fast charging (model) as well. But technology and promotion are two logics. "

On January 18, GAC clarified that "fast charging" and "long endurance" belong to two projects. Graphene based super fast charging battery and long endurance silicon negative battery have been tested in real vehicles as planned, and are expected to be carried out on existing aion V and aion LX models of GAC ea'an within this year.

GAC said that the popularization of graphene based super fast charging batteries depends on the release of relevant national standards for super fast charging and the construction progress of high-power overcharge equipment; the popularity of long-term silicon negative battery is affected by the total cost of the battery and consumer acceptance, and the market demand is uncertain.

However, this has not dispelled the doubts about graphene battery. On January 18, the trend of a and H shares of GAC group showed obvious differentiation. A shares rose 5.43% to close at 13.20 yuan, while H shares fell 8.10% to close at HK $8.62. On January 19, both a and H shares of GAC group fell, and the capital market became calm.

In fact, the innovation of battery materials is a process of accumulation and requires a long time of effort. At the same time, the technical innovation of power battery needs to balance the contradictory performance indexes such as specific energy, life, fast charging, safety and cost, which is extremely difficult.

Unveiling the veil of "concept", the innovation and development of battery technology is far less than imagined.

The significance of speculation is greater than the actual value

Public information shows that graphene is a two-dimensional crystal basic material composed of carbon atoms and only one layer of atomic thickness. Since it was successfully separated by physicists in 2004, because of its light weight, high strength, super conductivity and other properties, it is regarded as an important technology to improve the charging speed of battery and promote the technical progress of power battery. The praise of "the king of new materials in the 21st century" seems to set off a revolution that subverts traditional industries. For a moment, it seems that everything can be graphene. "Graphene bamboo charcoal", "graphene underwear", "graphene mask" and other words are full of advertising slogans.

In the final analysis, the mystery of graphene battery itself and the public's enthusiastic expectation for it are inseparable from the publicity of GAC ea'an, and GAC is not the first "crab eater".

In 2016, after the acquisition of Fisk, which was once equal with Tesla, founder Hendrick Fiske decided to rebuild Fiske and announced that graphene batteries would be used in the upcoming Fisker emotion electric vehicle. But a year later, Fisk said the cost of graphene batteries was out of control and the technology was flawed, and he switched to LG Chemical's lithium-ion batteries.

Also in 2016, Huawei's watt Laboratory of Academia Sinica announced a major research breakthrough in the field of lithium-ion batteries, launching the industry's first high-temperature long-life graphene based lithium-ion battery. But in the process of communication, it was misunderstood that Huawei developed "graphene battery", which caused a sensation.

It's worth noting that, in fact, what they're developing is not a real graphene battery. Liu Guanwei, Ph.D. in materials science and engineering of Tsinghua University, wrote in Zhihu: "in short, graphene can only be used as a conductive additive, and it is impossible to be the main active material of batteries. The cost is still high. In batteries, it is an additive with a small amount of use, and is not the main contributor / main mechanism contributor at all. Therefore, graphene (base) should not be named for the battery at all 。 There are basically no graphene batteries, only "lithium ion batteries / lead-acid batteries doped with graphene".

At present, there is no strict definition of graphene battery in the academic field. It is understood that in the power battery industry, the principle of "which component plays a major role shall be defined by which component" is generally followed, and the cathode material is used for differentiation.

"At present, there is no graphene battery in the true sense. At least, the names of batteries are more based on positive materials. For example, nickel hydrogen batteries, lithium iron phosphate batteries, ternary batteries and so on are all named after positive materials, but there are no batteries named after conductivity at present." On January 24, Fang Jianhua, President of the new energy automobile venture capital sub fund of the national science and Technology Achievements Transformation Fund, said in an interview with the reporter of the 21st century economic report.

"So far, no battery company has proposed the concept of graphene battery, including Ningde times, BYD, GuoXuan, or even Samsung, LG, etc. I think the concept proposed by the main engine manufacturer is more a kind of publicity. The graphene based battery produced by GAC is actually realized by adding graphene to the negative material silicon carbon anode

"Eight minutes full of 80%" is not unrealistic

In fact, as early as 2017, BYD and GuoXuan high tech power energy have realized large-scale configuration of graphene conductive agent.

Fang Jianhua told reporters that BYD and GuoXuan mainly added graphene slurry into the cathode material as a conductive agent to enhance its conductivity. At present, carbon black and carbon nanotubes (CNT) are widely used as conductive materials. It is understood that carbon black is still widely used in Ningde era. Comparatively speaking, carbon nanotubes are more stable and have better performance, but the cost is not as good as carbon black.

Ping An Securities also pointed out that the "graphene batteries" publicized by manufacturers are essentially lithium batteries or lead-acid batteries with graphene materials as conductive agents. Due to the low coulomb efficiency of the first cycle, high charge discharge platform, high cost and complex process, pure graphene materials can not replace the current commercial graphite directly as the negative electrode of lithium batteries Use of materials.

GAC group has previously disclosed that the specific principle of research and development of graphene battery is to add three-dimensional graphene into the positive and negative electrodes of the battery as an additive to improve the charging performance of the battery. Zeng Qinghong, chairman of GAC, said that the graphene fast charging battery has 6C fast charging capacity. Combined with high-power overcharge equipment, it can be charged to 80% in 8 minutes at most. Combined with silicon anode material, the energy density can be increased to about 280wh / kg.

Therefore, knowing that graphene can be used as a conductive agent, it is listed as a selling point of publicity. The poster of gac-ea'an has the meaning of writing articles in the text. However, it should be noted that its claim of "80% full in 8 minutes" is not unrealistic.

"It is possible to achieve 80% full charge in 8 minutes and conduct electricity through graphene technically, but it has nothing to do with graphene for 1000 km. It is not only technically impossible, but also difficult to achieve such a high energy density in performance." Fang Jianhua pointed out.

In addition, 80% of graphene based super fast charging batteries can be charged in 8 minutes, which is closely related to infrastructure construction such as charging piles. Last week, a group of pictures of GAC ea'an super charging pile were exposed on the Internet. The charging gun was marked with "600A 1000V", which means that its maximum charging power reaches 600kW, more than twice the maximum power of Tesla 250KW, but this undoubtedly requires higher bearing capacity of the power grid.

What is the foreground?

In this dispute about graphene battery, there are not enough rigorous posters of automobile companies, mystery of graphene battery, pursuit of capital market, misunderstanding in information dissemination and lack of professional knowledge.

After the noise, we need to think about how far away is the real graphene battery from the commercial landing and application?

"Graphene for lithium-ion batteries has obvious advantages over traditional carbon based materials in terms of asexual energy. Moreover, nano materials are difficult to use and have high cost, so their development prospects are worrying." According to Liu Guanwei, "the technology of 'graphene battery' is close to nonexistence. Graphene can only improve the charge discharge rate in theory, but has no help for the improvement of capacity (energy) (those who hope that the 'graphene battery' can solve the problem of mobile phone / electric vehicle service will be disappointed), and its gimmick significance is far greater than its practical value. Moreover, the high specific surface area and other properties of graphene nanomaterials are incompatible with the current technology system of lithium-ion battery industry, and the application prospect is very slim. "

"Graphene as a conductive agent, first of all, has no advantage in cost, and its performance is not very stable. So at present, graphene as a conductive agent of cathode materials, subject to the limitations of cost and performance stability, has not been fully promoted Fang Jianhua told the 21st century economic reporter, "from the investment point of view, it can be accurately said that the investment value of graphene battery and its related, investment value is very small, and the risk is extremely high."

It is worth noting that gac-ea announced in January a power battery technology that may be mass-produced in the fourth quarter of this year. On the one hand, it wants to seize the winning point in the fierce competition of new energy vehicle market. Since this year, Weilai solid-state battery, gac-ea silicon negative battery and Ningde era long-range battery all claim to increase the endurance to 1000 km On the other hand, it is not ruled out that GAC's move is to gain the favor of capital with the help of concept, so as to improve the share price and market value. The capital market once showed great enthusiasm and pursuit for the application prospect and expected benefits of graphene market, and it was highly sensitive and concerned about the concept of graphene.

In addition, Fang Jianhua pointed out that China's new energy vehicle industry is breeding huge investment opportunities. On the one hand, China has grown into the largest automobile market in the world; on the other hand, China has formed a complete new energy automobile industry chain and has produced such leading suppliers as Ningde era.

"At present, it seems that there is a bubble in the new energy vehicle industry, but from a future perspective, it may not be a bubble, and investment is more optimistic about the entire industrial chain. Especially in the field of power battery, it is far from a foregone conclusion. Whether it is lithium iron phosphate, lithium ternary batteries, cobalt free batteries, solid-state batteries, the future development space is very huge. "

He believes that solid state battery is a development direction, but it is still difficult to realize the industrialization of semi-solid battery by the end of 2022. Solid state battery should be industrialized in the next 5-10 years, but there is still a long way to go.

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