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As a technology route that combines resource and cost advantages, is there a real opportunity to replace iron lithium batteries in the future after the industrialization of sodium ion batteries enters the market?

On July 29, 2021, South Korean energy market analysis company SNER Research released survey results showing that China's battery giant CATL (CATL) ranks among the top with a market share of 29.9%, while BYD ranks fourth. CATL's battery usage in the first half of the year was 34.1 GWh, accounting for 29.9% of the market share. BYD, ranked fourth, had a 6.9% share, an increase of 203.6% year-on-year.

On the same day, CATL Chairman Zeng Yuqun officially announced CATL's first generation sodium ion battery, and the innovative lithium sodium hybrid battery pack also made its debut at the announcement meeting. Next, CATL has a great opportunity to maintain or even expand its global market share, which is the first in the world.

As early as May this year at CATL's annual shareholders' meeting, Zeng Yuqun revealed that CATL will announce its sodium ion battery around July. As soon as this statement was made, it caused a huge uproar in the market, and the concept stocks of sodium ion batteries also set off a trend of limit up.

Just after today's news was announced, CATL's share price soared 6% to close at 556.8 yuan, with a total market value of 1.29 trillion yuan, ranking first in Shenzhen Stock Exchange, fourth in A-share market, and second only to Kweichow Moutai, ICBC and China Construction Bank. CATL continued to rebound for two days, with an increase of 12.5% and a new market value of 144 billion yuan. Since the beginning of this year, CATL's stock price has risen by 50%.

With the sharp rise in CATL's stock price, the market value of Zeng Yuqun's shares has also skyrocketed.

On July 8th, Zeng Yuqun surpassed Jack Ma and became the third richest person in China; Now it has surpassed Tencent Ma Huateng and risen to the second richest person in China, second only to Nongfu Shanquan Chairman Zhong Yi. According to real-time data from Forbes, Zeng Yuqun's wealth reached $46.5 billion, Ma Huateng's wealth shrank to $44.5 billion, and Ma Yun's wealth shrank to $43.4 billion.

Is it a concept or a new track?

Last year at the shareholders' meeting, Zeng Yuqun once said, "Lithium is still being fried, so I will immediately get rid of it for you. How do you think it's going to be fried? I don't think sodium chloride can stir up because there's a lot of salt, right?" Indeed, Zeng Yuqun immediately created a "sodium" battery.

However, it is not difficult to see that although the industry is in a state of blowout, the large cake of the industrial chain has been occupied by the upstream for a long time. Under the upward trend of upstream resource prices, CATL, as a battery factory, is under pressure on its gross profit margin.

So, with the continuous increase in production of pure electric vehicles equipped with lithium batteries, the lithium battery industry is facing problems such as low reserves of core raw materials, high difficulty in mining, and increased costs, which is an important reason for CATL to develop sodium ion batteries. According to Wind data, as of July 20th, the price of lithium carbonate has risen by 66% this year, while lithium hydroxide has risen by 96%.

However, although sodium batteries have entered the field of vision, people question their immature technology. The industry believes that using sodium ion batteries as an optional method is necessary, but sodium ion batteries have obvious shortcomings and can be applied in energy storage and low-speed electric vehicles, more importantly as a reserve technology for energy security

The research on sodium ion batteries can be traced back to the 1970s, and in the past decade, there has been a surge in related research and the industry has begun to layout. Sodium ions have a similar working principle to lithium batteries, and charge transfer is achieved through the insertion and removal of sodium ions between the positive and negative electrodes, "said Huang Qisen Bosch, Vice President of CATL Research Institute.

"However, the difference is that compared with lithium ion, sodium ion has a larger volume and more stringent requirements in terms of structural stability and dynamic performance of materials, which has also become the bottleneck of sodium ion batteries that are difficult to commercialize."

For this reason, CATL adopts Prussian white material with higher capacity in the positive electrode material, innovatively rearranges the charge of the material's phase structure, solving the core problem of Prussian white's rapid capacity decay during cycling. In terms of negative electrode materials, CATL has developed hard carbon materials with unique pore structures, which have the characteristics of high capacitance, easy detachment, and excellent cycling.

Indeed, compared to lithium batteries, sodium ion batteries have certain advantages. For example, compared to lithium resources, sodium resources are abundant and widely distributed, so sodium batteries will have a significant cost advantage after large-scale commercial use, while also being safer. Sodium ion batteries have relatively stable electrochemical performance.

But at the same time, the disadvantages of sodium ion batteries are also very obvious.

The energy density is low. At present, the energy density of single cell of sodium ion battery is only 120 Wh/kg, which is significantly lower than 180 Wh/kg of lithium iron phosphate battery and 240 Wh/kg of ternary lithium battery. In addition, the cycle life is relatively short. The current cycle times of sodium ion battery are about 1500 times at most, significantly lower than 6000 times of lithium iron phosphate battery and 3000 times of ternary battery. The most important thing is that the industrial chain is still incomplete. Due to the lack of engineering equipment and supply chain support, the current production cost is actually higher than that of lithium batteries.

In response, Everbright Securities analyzed that sodium ion batteries are still in the early stages of industrialization, and there are shortcomings in the energy density of batteries. However, in the long run, it is expected that by 2025, the demand for potential application scenarios of sodium ion batteries in China will be 123GWh, corresponding to a market space of about 53.7 billion yuan.

Leading the way, but not carefree

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