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What kind of diaphragm is used in LG Chemical's power battery?

The answer is: both dry and wet membranes are used, but dry membranes account for a larger proportion.

Not only LG Chem, but also Samsung SDI and AESC (for Nissan) mainly use dry process (supplier Celgard).

Since 2013, LG Chemical's main supplier of dry diaphragm has changed from Celgard to Star Source.

In terms of wet membrane, there are many partners at present, at least Dongli, W-scope and Xingyuan Materials. Among them, the first two coating plants and base film production lines are purchased from LG Chem, and Xingyuan Materials has obtained the patent authorization of LG Chem SRS coating. Therefore, LG Chem uses wet membrane for power battery, and Xingyuan Materials may also be its main supplier.

Special note: Yubu Xingchan, a Japanese manufacturer of dry process, has also obtained the patent authorization of SRS, but has not yet become its supplier.

With regard to the diaphragm supplier of LG chemical power battery, there have been many rumors in the market recently, and we can sum up the following two types:

LG Chemical's power batteries use all the wet diaphragms from Toray, Japan, while the dry diaphragms from Starsource are used in low-end fields such as electric tools and energy storage.

LG Chemical uses the wet membrane of Toray, while the dry membrane is Celgard, which has nothing to do with the source material.

If the above rumor is true, the logic mentioned at the beginning that "Star Source probably will also become the main supplier of LG" is obviously wrong, so it is necessary to explain here whose diaphragm LG Chemical's power battery uses.

In the analysis, in order to ensure the credibility, only the prospectus, announcements and authoritative third-party reports are selected as the data sources, rather than the investigation minutes with low credibility.

First of all, the second rumor is not worth refuting. As can be seen in the prospectus of Xingyuan Material, the company has made mass supply to LG since 2013, and the sales revenue in that year reached more than 30 million yuan.

Top customers shown in the prospectus of Xingyuan Materials:

After that, the sales volume of Xingyuan Materials increased year by year. By 2017, the export revenue had increased to 194 million yuan (most of the overseas revenue came from LG Chemical), with sales volume of nearly 60 million square meters. There is no doubt that it is one of the core suppliers of LG Chemical.

In fact, LG Chem's dry diaphragm supplier has been replaced by Starsource since 2013.

There are two reasons:

LG Chem and Polypore, the parent company of Celgard, had already filed a lawsuit against LG Chem for the patent issue as early as January 2014. Celgard, citing LG Chem's diaphragm patent, asked LG Chem to prohibit LG from selling relevant batteries in the United States. As for a supplier who sued itself, I don't think any battery factory will consider purchasing any more

Since July 2013 (consistent with the time when Xingyuan entered LG Chem on a large scale), the supply between Celgard and LG Chem has basically stopped. After losing this important customer, its revenue has declined year by year, and it was finally acquired by Asahi Huacheng in 2015.

As for the first rumor, that is, what are the downstream application fields of the dry diaphragm from Star Source to LG? It is more difficult to analyze. Let's try to analyze.

The power battery of LG Chemical must be using the dry diaphragm of Starsource

According to the analysis of the material system of the Chevrolet Volt (the leading model of LG chemical power battery) by the authority Avicenne, there are both PP (dry process) and PE (wet process) in it. The common point is that the coating is added.

Another authoritative report shows that LG Chem's PHEV and HEV batteries are coated with dry membrane+SRS material. (The figure below also shows that the AESC battery of Nissan electric vehicle also uses a dry diaphragm)

From the prospectus of Xingyuan, more than 90% of its products have been used in the power field since 2015. Moreover, LG Chem accounts for more than 30% of its shipment, so most of them must be used in the power field to replace the original Celgard dry diaphragm.

There has always been a misconception in the market that the dry diaphragm can only be used in low-end fields, such as rechargeable treasure, energy storage battery, lithium iron phosphate power battery, etc. The high-end ternary power battery must use the wet diaphragm.

The actual situation is completely opposite. Not only LG Chem, but also the power batteries of Samsung SDI and AESC (for Nissan LEAF) are mainly made of dry membrane. The following two figures show the battery material systems of Samsung SDI and AESC given by the authoritative Japanese institution B3.

AESC supplies 32.5Ah power battery for Nissan LEAF, which is still using Celgard's PP (dry process) membrane. (PP is polypropylene for dry diaphragm; PE is polyethylene for wet diaphragm; separator is diaphragm)

Samsung SDI supplies 60Ah i3 and next generation 94Ah power batteries for BMW, and is still using Celgard's three-layer PP/PE/PP (dry process) membrane.

SRS is the unique skill of LG Chem, and Star Source has been authorized

According to a report by the authority B3 of Japan, the diaphragm industry has been divided into two camps, LG camp (including Toray, W-scope, Star Source, etc.) and Asahi Huacheng camp (including the Celgard acquired).

LG Chem has the unique technology of membrane SRS coating, and the enterprises under its camp have partially or completely obtained the technology of this coating. For example, Xingyuan and Yubu Xingchan have obtained the patent authorization of SRS (in the future, they need to pay part of the patent royalties to LG Chem to sell this kind of membrane). Although Yubu Xingchan has also obtained the authorization and is also a dry membrane manufacturer, LG has not yet purchased from it, but is only an alternative supplier, The original saying of B3 is "The UbeMaxell products as a candidate for use in LGCxEV cells 4".

Toray directly acquired LG Chemical's coating plant at a price of 3 billion yen (equivalent to about 184 million yuan), while W-scope purchased LG Chemical's wet membrane production line. As a result, LG Chem no longer produces coating diaphragms by itself, but all of them are purchased from external suppliers. (The following figure is the original image of B3, and Senior is the source material)

LG chemical battery has been selected as the designated battery supplier by international automobile companies such as General Motors, Renault, Nissan, etc. SRS diaphragm coating technology has played a decisive role. Therefore, Xingyuan has obtained patent authorization, which will undoubtedly play an important role in the future layout of LG chemical power battery.

The proportion of wet membrane will increase, and Starsource needs to compete with Toray and W-scope

As mentioned above, LG Chemical's power batteries, dry and wet separators are used. In terms of dry diaphragm, Star Source Material has replaced Celgard as the core supplier of LG Chem, and has no strong competitors and a stable position.

However, from the perspective of the development trend of thinness, the future wet membrane is still the direction. According to a research report of B3, the second generation ZOE of Renault in 2020 will use SRS coated wet membrane.

LG Chemical has many wet membrane suppliers, and the equipment of Toray and W-scope, the two membrane companies, are derived from LG Chemical itself, which is inextricably linked with LG Chemical, and StarSource faces more competition.

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