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The conference adjacent to Battery Japan in Tokyo once again provided excellent insights into ongoing R&D activities and market developments, thanks to simultaneous translations
from Japanese to English.
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Mr. Hideo Takeshita from B3 Corp. explained how market growth for Li-ion batteries continues in mobile/IT and xEV applications, while the
ESS (stationary energy storage systems) market
is growing as well, albeit from a smaller base. Li-ion batteries are starting to encroach on lead-acid batteries in automotive SLI (starting, lighting, ignition)
and UPS (uninterruptible power supply) battery applications.
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Both Mr. Takeshita and Mr. Yosikazu Watanabe from Tukushi Shigen Consul (TSC) do not believe lithium & cobalt supply will pose an
insurmountable supply risk as the Li-ion battery industry grows further, because there are many new mining projects that will lead to increased lithium supply,
and because cobalt content in cathode materials has already dropped to 5% for NCA (nickel-cobalt-aluminum) and to 15% for NCM (nickel-cobalt-manganese) materials.
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A further highlight was the presentation by Dr. Shinji Nakanishi from the Advanced Material Engineering Division of Toyota, who illustrated how they modify interfaces
in solid-state batteries with the help of advanced surface treatment processes. These processes can be applied to materials in bulk powder form rather than at device level.
This leads to high process throughput at large scale and manageable costs. Solid electrolyte particles are deposited using a liquid coating process in the presence of a binder,
which again, as a rule is more efficient and robust than powder compression & sintering in devices.
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Toyota expects a higher energy density for solid-state batteries, but a low power density as compared to Li-ion batteries based on liquid electrolytes.
Although high power densities are achievable with solid-state batteries, there are likely negative effects on longevity upon applying high currents (crack formation).
The presentation by Toyota together with the targeted acquisition of Maxwell Technologies by Tesla supports our
prediction from 2018 that supercapacitors will
be combined with solid-state batteries in automotive and ESS systems.
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