Guoxuan unveils a cobalt-free LFP pouch battery cell with 212 Wh/kg
Guoxuan is a Chinese battery cell maker known for producing the most energy-dense cobalt-free LFP (LiFePO4) battery cells.
Late last year this manufacturer reached a record-breaking energy density of 212 Wh/kg for a LFP battery cell, made with a LFP cathode and a silicon anode. Now, Guoxuan is providing more details about this pouch battery cell.
Battery cell specs
- Capacity: 55 Ah
- Voltage: 3,2 V
- Energy: 176 Wh
- Weight: 830 g
- Energy density: 212 Wh/kg
Moreover, Guoxuan has the goal of reaching 230 Wh/kg already during this year and 260 Wh/kg in 2022.
Guoxuan’s LFP battery cell evolution
- 2009: 95 Wh/kg
- 2015: 140 Wh/kg
- 2019: 190 Wh/kg
- 2020: 212 Wh/kg (191 Wh/kg at pack level with JTM)
- 2021: 230 Wh/kg (207 Wh/kg at pack level with JTM)
- 2022: 260 Wh/kg (234 Wh/kg at pack level with JTM)
#Guoxuan presents its 212 Wh/kg #LFP pouch cell that uses silicon based anode/pre-lithation tech, #China media citing company.
Capacity: 55 Ah
Weight: 830 g
Cathode gram capacity: 150 mAh/g
Cathode compaction density: 2.4 g/cc
2021 Guoxuan target is 230 Wh/kg. pic.twitter.com/aAc4ElDAgC— Moneyball (@DKurac) January 9, 2021
Being an inherently safe battery chemistry, battery packs made with LFP (LiFePO4) cells don’t require much safety equipment, such as metal firewalls between cells or a complex TMS (Thermal Management System). This means that the GCTPR (gravimetric cell-to-pack ratio) for this battery chemistry is higher than what we have with NCM or NCA battery packs.
Guoxuan uses the JTM (Jelly roll-to-module) technology to achieve a record-breaking GCTPR of 90 %.
Let’s see what kind of battery packs can we have with the battery cell recently unveiled by Guoxuan.
Hypothetical battery pack 1
- Configuration: 136s1p
- Energy: 23,9 kWh
- Weight (cells): 113 kg
- Weight (pack): 125 kg (estimated from a GCTPR of 90 %)
- Cost: 1.915 euros (estimated with 80 euros per kWh)
Hypothetical battery pack 2
- Configuration: 136s2p
- Energy: 47,9 kWh
- Weight (cells): 226 kg
- Weight (pack): 251 kg (estimated from a GCTPR of 90 %)
- Cost: 3.830 euros (estimated with 80 euros per kWh)
Hypothetical battery pack 3
- Configuration: 136s3p
- Energy: 71,8 kWh
- Weight (cells): 339 kg
- Weight (pack): 376 kg (estimated from a GCTPR of 90 %)
- Cost: 5.745 euros (estimated with 80 euros per kWh)
Considering that Volkswagen is the biggest stakeholder of Guoxuan, we might see the German automaker adopting this technology soon.
More info:
Excellent news! I wonder what sort of power performance (C-rate) these super dense batteries can support.
Cycle life would also be nice to know, that is another strength of LFP
Very interesting development, thanks Pedro. Seems like the battery constraint for EV adoption will fall away in the next few years.
How robust/durable do you think the silicon based anode is? Considering that most manufacturers have had quite a lot of difficulty including more than a few % of silicon in their graphite based anodes. Do you think they’ve overcome some of the expansion/contraction issues with the silicon?
Also, could you post the similar specs for an existing NCM battery? For those of us who can’t remember all the spec numbers off the top of our heads it would be nice to see a side by side comparison of where these new LFP batteries are at. Maybe the LG 622s or 712s that are currently in use? Or maybe post a link to one of your articles where you list it?
Hi Marcel.
Yes, until recently using silicon anodes was problematic, but on Battery Day Tesla said that it was able to overcome all the issues.
“Baglino said Tesla will use standard metallurgical silicon rather than pricey nanostructured materials in its anode design and combat expansion with stretchy ion-conducting polymer coatings and binders. Using silicon, he said, will expand the range of electric vehicles 20%.”
https://cen.acs.org/energy/energy-storage-/Tesla-lays-battery-advances/98/i37
Here you have a roundup of energy densities in EV batteries.
https://pushevs.com/2020/04/04/comparison-of-different-ev-batteries-in-2020/
Here you see the energy density record for EV batteries in China.
https://pushevs.com/2020/05/09/arcfox-alpha-t-sets-energy-density-record-for-ev-batteries/
ARCFOX α-T with a battery made with SK Innovation NCM 811 cells holds the record with 194,12 Wh/kg.
Tesla’s silicon anode is speculative at this point, more of an R&D project than anything headed for near term production.
Do you plan an article on Nio’s 360 Wh/kg (semi) solid state battery announcement for Q4 2022? I initially thought it came out of their R&D deal with Prologium, but not all the tech details seem to align. Thanks.
Hi.
I don’t have much information on that solid state battery.
It seems that the manufacturer is CATL, if confirmed, it means that the battery comes sooner than it was expected.
https://pushevs.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/08/CATL-Energy-Density-Development-Roadmap.png
The CATL SSB is still a mystery, but SAIC will introduce the new brand Zhiji tomorrow. The car will have a 155 kWh / 1000km range / 240 Wh/kg pack level battery, likely the same CATL-tech as NIO. Zhiji is a joint venture of SAIC, CATL and Pudong New Area (the factory location). Probably battery details are embargoed until this introduction (my guess), so NIO wasn’t allowed to disclose details.
The battery is probably semi-SSB (with partial liquid electrolyte) with a lithium-oxide electrolyte. This is like the Quantumscape protoype.
Also Chinese company Qingtao has a similar semi-SSB. BAIC (one of the investors alongside SAIC, GAC, Hozon and others) has a running prototype with this battery.
Prologium (Huineng) from Taiwan intends to produce a similar semi-SSB this year. Aiways has a technical agreement and has announced a car with the battery some time ago.
To clarify, with “This is like the Quantumscape protoype” I mean the lithium-oxide electrolyte. The Quatumscape battery is proper solid-state.
Nobody knows for sure: but some knowledgeable people speculate that QuantumScape is using a liquid electrolyte on the cathode side…
wow, so much going on, the whole EV landscape is going to change quickly over the next few years.
That old CATL roadmap doesn’t show any silicon-rich anodes with solid state electrolytes…
Generally wasn’t one of the advantages of SSBs that you could use a lithium metal anode safely?
What makes you think Tesla’s silicon anode is a speculative research project? I didn’t see anything to suggest it’s not in the cells they are ramping at the large-scale Kato pilot line at right now, and intend to produce in huge volumes starting next year…
Mostly just years of listening to Musk. When they actually build things he talks about difficulties (sometimes very specifically). Pie in the sky/sunshine and butterflies mode means it’s a lab experiment. Extracting lithium from clays using table salt is another good example — don’t hold your breath on that.
They ARE working very hard on DBE. So we heard how Maxwell really hadn’t taken it beyond proof of concept, Tesla is on the 4th iteration of 7, anyone can make a prototype but scaling is really hard, yields are still too low, etc.
I also came across a couple comments from people who closely follow battery chemistry research and were familiar with such coatings, IMHO it’s very unlikely Tesla internally made a “5 year leap” and disclosed it publicly before patenting it.
Thanks, those links are very helpful. So it seems like most newer non-Chinese NCM batteries are in the 140-150 kwh/kg range, so these new LFP cells from Guoxuan look like a significant achievement.
The Chinese EVs seem to have higher densities, but you might be right, they might have less mass involved in firewalls and safety and cooling structures because they’re more focused on density and less focused on safety. I wonder if this is related with CATL pausing their production on NCM 811 cells because they had too many battery fires in China?
Also, you get some really knowledgeable comments on your posts, there’s always something to learn here.
The specs of a Renault Twingo battery pack are:
Batterie-Nennkapazität in kWh 21,4
Batterietyp Lithium-Ionen
Anzahl der Module/Zellen 8/96
Nennspannung AC (V) 400
Gewicht der Batterie (kg) 165
I’ve no idea who supplies the batteries.
Surely this battery based on those figures above would be 45 to 50KG lighter which is the weight of a driver(Women typically drive Twingos). The reduction in weight would add another 10km or so to the range of this car.
The Twingo and Zoe motor is an old design. Between a new motor and lighter battery a car like this would be dropping 80kg.
This is great news, LF(M)P and similar mineral-abundant chemistries are surely the future for mass market EVs and energy storage. Thanks Pedro!
Nickel is not fundamentally scarce, to the best of my knowledge… Production of battery-grade nickel just needs to be ramped way up.
Spinning up new nickel mines takes years and high-nickel cathodes have the potential to outstrip supply in the near-mid future. But assuming a long enough timeline and the right economic incentives, you’re right that globally there are likely sufficient deposits. Also high prices would get exploration juniors looking for more high -grade deposits, so proven/probable reserves should increase over time.
I beg to differ, sorry.
Nickel is very common on earth (number 5 material) but almost all of it is in the earth’s core.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.livescience.com/amp/29327-nickel.html
60%+ of current production is from Nickel Sulfides which are high grade ore bodies formed during magmatic intrusions into the crust. The processing plants for these ores are very cheap and the environmental impact of mining these ore bodies relatively low (particularly to make battery precursor materials).
Nickel laterites are the bulk of the known resources but currently a minority of output. These are low grade iron containing deposits. Mining them is very simple (typically at surface or with only a small amount of overburden) but the various processing routes are highly capital intensive and environmentally problematic. High Pressure Acid Leach (used for limonitic ores) is hugely expensive to get up and running and difficult to maintain due to the use of hot, high pressure acid.
Rotary Kiln Electric Furnaces are used on higher grade saprolitic ores (underlay the limonitic ores and typically are higher grade from weathering effects) to mainly produce nickel in pig iron. These use electricity (almost all coal fired as plants are in China and Indonesia) and pulverised coal to reduce the ores. They are tremendously CO2 intensive as a result albeit much cheaper to build than HPAL plants.
Currently battery demand is a fraction of total nickel demand. The world is not replacing nickel sulfide production though even now with new discoveries.
A high nickel battery scenario would soon see total required nickel several times current total demand. This would require a MASSIVE increase in the output of nickel laterites, a much hgigher price than the already high 18,000 USD a tonne for nickel and a HUGE increase in greenhouse gas emissions to produce this nickel.
Think of it like nickel sulfides = conventional oil/gas. Cheap. Very productive. Limited resources.
Vs.
Nickel laterities = shale gas/oil. Expensive/environmentally destructive. Massive resources.
Check out figure 3 below for nickel demand in high nickel battery scenario vs production.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43246-020-00095-x
Check out figure 3 for carbon intensity of nickel oxide (battery prechrsor material) made of saprolitic indonesian ores. These figures only get worse as grades drop as you ramp up production and use more marginal ore.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/21/5664/pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiAxbzNibPuAhVbSX0KHZrkCD0QFjABegQIDhAB&usg=AOvVaw23uEQOTJgHaOarq76uI3Lu
By the way I have seen with my own eyes the nickel in pig iron plants in Indonesia. Trust me when I say nobody who cares about the environment wants to see more of these built!
I am not interested in EVs here. The idea that I can deploy a large battery bank for my home while being guilt free of cobalt is a big deal for me. A 100-300 kWh power bank means I can charge them up with my solar panels that I already have yet not have to worry about cloudy days cutting my power inputs.
Then you already have plenty of LFP cells to choose from. This one is specially designed for automotive applications where volume and weight are important. in your basement volume and weight shouldn’t be a problem.
For such applications i see future in Na-ion chemistry. 😉
The more options the better.
I would love to test out 10kWh in my camper. I hope they have great longevity too like the Nissan Lizard batteries since 04\2013 that do not need active cooling either.
Neither Nissan’s “lizard” batteries nor LFP have great longevity without active cooling. (At least not under any serious load.)
This is very important news. If estimation on battery pack is correct than that kind of a battery is already denser than that of Zoes or Tesla 3, which are estimated to have the densest battery pack. Hypothetical battery pack 3 is only 50kg heavier than that of Zoe and probably cheaper than NCM 712 version. Now imagine sick specks Zoe could give us with that battery. I wonder what holds Renault (and other serious manufacturers) to start using this type of chemistry…
Interestingly Guoxuan uses a pouch cell design instead of prismatic for its new gen of LFP. Maybe the dimensions are similar to the LGX E78 and so it will fit to the standardized VW MEB 590 modules.
By the way Pedro why 136s battery connection? It seems to me too close to 500V charger limit. I think that equivalent to the common 96s connection with NCA/NMC cells is 108s in LFP.
Moreover, the GCTPR of 90 % is even higher than what BYD gets with the Blade Battery (85 %) that uses prismatic cells. This means that the passive material (cases, cables and electronics) is extremely light compared to the active material (cells).
I wonder how much damage the battery would suffer from a serious car crash. I think that Chinese battery packs are much more focused on energy density and costs than safety.
I chose the 136s connection to take full advantage of standard DC fast chargers (500 V). It would use 8 modules with 17 cells each. Low number of modules to keep the energy density high.
The Peugeot e-208 with NCM 523 cells already uses a 108s2p configuration.
It is a good question why new BEVs does not use higher voltage than 108s (~455 V) close to 500 V. MEB platform also utilises 108s connection in the middle 62 kWh pack, smaller and bigger packs have 96s connection. For me I see 108s LFP as direct replacement for 96s NCA/NMC and 124s LFP for 108s NCA/NMC.
Other good variations.
124s1p: 4 modules, each with 31 cells (21,8 kWh)
126s1p: 6 modules, each with 21 cells (22,2 kWh)
128s1p: 8 modules, each with 16 cells (22,5 kWh)
130s1p: 10 modules, each with 13 cells (22,9 kWh)
132s1p: 6 modules, each with 22 cells (23,2 kWh)
I think the reason is the IGBT (power transistors) voltage limits in the inverters. 430V battery means spikes that can reach >550V. You can get IGBT modules up to 1200V but they are more expensive.
We built a 120s LFP battery 80kWh which has a very nice voltage range.
“New Development of Volkswagen Guoxuan Joint Project
During the conference, Cai Yi, Dean of Guoxuan High-Tech Engineering Research Institute, made an annual work report and informed the latest progress of cooperation between Volkswagen and Guoxuan High-Tech.
The report shows that the total number of the Volkswagen Guoxuan joint project team currently exceeds 70 people, of which the experts dispatched by Volkswagen cover module design, manufacturing process, quality, testing and other functions.
The report also revealed that the MEB project jointly developed by the two parties takes into account the standard MEB module design of both ternary and iron-lithium chemical systems. The goal is to achieve mass production and supply in 2023.”
https://www.d1ev.com/kol/135813
Thx Leo
LiFePO batteries DO need special thermal management. They get degraded rapidly if overheated or overcooled.
Can you explain what a JTM (Jelly roll-to-module) technology is? Do you have more informations about it?
Hi Marcel.
Great question. I haven’t seen a JTM battery pack yet, only cells. I really don’t know what it looks like.
I do know that the GCTPR is 90 %, because Guoxuan said that a battery cell with 200 Wh/kg translates to a 180 Wh/kg battery pack, it’s impressive. BYD gets a CGTPR of 85 % with Blade Battery.
This is what a flat jelly-roll battery cell looks like.
https://pushevs.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/09/Winding-jelly-roll-and-stacking-technologies.png
If I find more information about that I’ll write a detailed article.
Wow its Amazing the Speed that battery tec is moving at now
Pedro
2022 – [Mobilize-Renault] The Queen (forumpro.fr)
Great stuff! Thanks for all the details and explanations. Guoxuan technology looks very promising. They plan to multiply production capacity x4 in just 3 years (80 GWh in 2023). VW made another good investment. Now they have to commit to sell affordable EVs and prepare themselves to phase out a good share of their ICE production.
Engaging and thought-provoking, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it!