Japan's "all-resin Battery" Joins New Generation Battery Research And Development Competition

The"all-resin battery" that uses resin instead of metal as a batterycomponent to avoid fire is expected to be mass-produced as early as the fall of2021. According to "Nihon Keizai Shimbun" reported on February 14,Japan's Sanyo Chemical Industry and start-ups from Keio University are activelyresearching and developing. This will catch up with all-solid-state and airbatteries that are currently leading the next generation of battery developmentcompetition. In the case of lithium-ion batteries for automotive and otherexpanding applications, the development of new-generation products is becomingmore and more fierce.

SanyoChemical will be funded by APB, a battery start-up company. APB was founded byYan Jiangying, a special professor at the Graduate School of Keio University inJapan. He once led the development of a lithium-ion battery for pure electricvehicles (EV) "Learning Wind" at Nissan. The development of an"all-resin battery" that fundamentally prevents a fire accident byeliminating metal in the battery structure was also proposed by him.

SanyoChemical Co., Ltd. holds the production technology of office laminating machinetoner and paper diaper materials, and will rely on this technology to producegelatinous resin as the base material of all-resin battery. The company haspartnered with chemical manufacturers and production equipment manufacturers toestablish a production method for all-resin batteries and has begun to supplyprototypes in the direction of mass production.

Theall-resin battery is wrapped with an electrode material such as lithium from agel-like resin containing an electrolytic solution, and serves as a positiveelectrode and a negative electrode of the battery. It is characterized by nofire even when it is fully charged, whether it is drilling or cutting.Production costs are expected to be less than 12 yen per watt hour, which islower than 15-20 yen for conventional lithium-ion batteries.

Lithium-ionbatteries, which are widely used at present, were developed by Yoshino Akira ofAsahi Kasei, Japan, and Sony was commercialized in 1991. The competition for anew generation of batteries has recently become more intense, because theperformance improvement of traditional products has reached its limit. Forexample, on a mobile device, it is impossible to eliminate a fire accidentcaused by a battery. In addition, in order to allow pure electric vehicles anddrones to travel for a long time, it is difficult to meet the requirements oftraditional batteries alone.

Since thebattery is the key to technological innovation in various products, it willitself be a huge market. According to the calculation of the Fuji economy ofthe survey company, the market size of large batteries used only forautomobiles and the like will exceed 15 trillion yen by 2030, and the materialmarket for large batteries will exceed 7 trillion yen. If a new generation ofhigh-performance batteries is available, this market is likely to expandfurther.

Thenext-generation battery that is currently the most popular is the “all-solidbattery.” TDK began mass production in the world in 2018 using the ceramictype, and Toyota Motor and Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. are also vigorouslydeveloping. However, most of the views believe that the formal popularity willbe around 2030. Sodium-ion batteries are also receiving much attention. TheFrench startup Dragon has announced that it will be commercialized. Sumitomo Chemicaland Nippon Electric Glass are dedicated to materials research.

Japanesecompanies have encountered a fierce attack by Chinese and Korean companies inthe lithium-ion battery market. If you can get ahead in the development of anew generation of batteries, it will become a chance for Japanese companies tomake a comeback.