Great potential for the status and development of lead-acid battery industry

In recent years, lead-acid battery technology has been continuously developed and the products are becoming more and more mature. The gradual optimization and upgrading of the starting battery structure, the extensive use of maintenance-free batteries, and the important power supply devices for military and civilian transportation equipment play an important supporting role for China to become the world's major automobile producer. Valve-controlled batteries, gel batteries, etc., are the core components of standby power supplies and large-scale reserve power supplies, and their production has become an important basic industry in the development of the national economy. Lead-acid battery industry has bright prospects.

The lead-acid battery, the main raw material of lead-acid batteries, can be recycled and used repeatedly. As long as relevant industrial policies for the recycling of used batteries are introduced and markets are properly guided, many problems such as shortages of non-ferrous metals and lead pollution in China can be effectively solved. Therefore, a correct understanding of the status quo of the battery industry, grasping the development trend, and effectively solving its own problems is a way to recycle resources and build a conservation-minded society. It is an effective way for the scientific development of the national economy.

Lead-acid battery industry in China

Since the accession to the WTO, with the increase of related industries in the country and the increase in investment by international battery manufacturers in China, China's lead-acid battery industry has developed rapidly, with an annual growth rate of more than 30%. At the same time, with the increasing demand in the international market, China has also become one of the world's largest exporters of lead-acid batteries. The gap between China's lead-acid battery technology and the international level is not obvious. The car battery is at the international advanced level, and the battery technology for power and electric bicycles is close to the international advanced level.

After more than 20 years of development, remarkable progress has been made in the technical progress of maintenance-free and sealed storage batteries. Lead-acid batteries have been widely used not only in traditional fields such as transportation and military defense, but also have been widely used in solar photovoltaic power generation, wind power generation, and communication power supplies. , power transformation and distribution systems, railways, ship communications, starting, lighting power supply, UPS power supply. Technological progress has promoted the rapid development of the battery industry, making it one of the emerging sunrise industries. However, due to the substantial increase in the price of lead, the main raw material of lead-acid batteries, in the second half of 2004 and continuing to operate at high prices, the industry profits of lead-acid batteries have shown a downward trend.

In recent years, with the changes in market demand, the production methods and processes of lead-acid batteries have been continuously improved, and the manufacturing level has been continuously improved. The specific energy, cycle life, consistency of performance, safety of use, and environmental protection of the batteries have been continuously improved. With the development of power supplies such as electric bicycle batteries, high-temperature curing technology has developed rapidly. It is generally believed that high temperature curing can improve the life of batteries. In recent years, negative electrode additives and their proportions have also accumulated large gesep.com quantity parameters and have found some regular experience. Domestically, other advanced technologies such as wound batteries, bipolars, and thin plates are still in the research stage and there is no mass production.

Judging from the situation of patent application in China, the overall technical development line of the battery industry in recent years is the improvement of the battery structure and the development of battery models. The foreign patented technologies are mainly related to cash thin plate bipolar lead batteries, sealed batteries using modular structures, and lead batteries with colloidal electrolytes. Therefore, there is still a gap between our patented technology and foreign countries.

Lead-acid battery industry environmental protection status and existing problems

After years of construction and development, China's lead-acid battery industry has basically formed a system and is rapidly developing, and environmental protection issues have also made breakthrough progress. At present, China's treatment methods and technologies for lead smoke, lead dust, sulfuric acid mist and water Has been basically mature, major and medium-sized lead-acid battery manufacturers continue to increase technological transformation efforts, update process equipment, universal use of environmentally efficient Filter cartridge type dust collector to replace the electrostatic precipitator, the use of wet dust collector purification of lead smoke, the use of shuttlecock The acid mist purification tower performs absorption of sulfuric acid mist, treats the flocculation reaction of lead-acid-containing wastewater, eliminates or reduces the environmental impact of pollutants technically, and continuously improves the production and operation environment. Most large and medium-sized production enterprises have achieved cleaner production. Some of them have passed the national environmental system certification.

However, due to the following reasons, the problem of pollution in the battery production process has not been well resolved, especially the pollution problems in the production process of a large number of medium-sized and small-sized enterprises. There are numerous manufacturers, small scales, serious pollution, and poor quality. In the midst of this, some workshop-type factories that do not have environmental protection conditions have moved up front. About one-quarter of the companies have been site-selected without environmental protection approvals. The pollution control facilities are not matched, and production is not subject to strict environmental protection measures and industrial safety and health. Under the conditions, the operators and the ecological environment are harmed. The production license system did not strictly control the clean production and the compliance of environmental protection facilities. Although our country has implemented a production license system since 2005, due to some problems in the process of approval and enforcement, it has not really promoted the production enterprises to achieve cleaner production, and many non-compliance manufacturers have become legalized (the current certification companies have reached 930 Home) caused serious environmental problems. There are still many incomplete and unsatisfactory laws related to environmental protection. The amount of fines for polluting enterprises, environmental protection departments, etc. is limited and cannot be compared with the social losses caused by corporate pollution. In addition, the state has not designated a policy to protect large and medium-sized battery manufacturers, and local environmental protection agencies also belong to the management of small battery manufacturers. They only attach importance to the supervision of large and medium-sized enterprises, resulting in large and medium-sized enterprises sewage charges, monitoring fees, "three simultaneous" The evaluation fee and other burdens are heavy.

The key measure to solve the environmental problem is to fully implement the battery recycling policy

China is actively promoting circular economy, 90% of used batteries can be recycled, but China's industrial policy has not recovered a good development space for used batteries, causing it to become a bottleneck that has long plagued the development of batteries in China. China does not have a statutory regulation for the recycling management of used lead-acid batteries. There is no professional recycling company for used lead-acid batteries nationwide, and no professional recycling lead company or battery company has established a nationwide recycling network and a regional recycling network. The work is in a disorderly state of decentralized operations, and the recovery rate of waste lead-acid batteries is not high. The problems of lead recycling appear in non-standard enterprises. It is imperative to rectify and strengthen management. The relevant state departments should issue policies as soon as possible to ban small waste lead recycling companies like small coal mines and small smelters. At the same time, policies were introduced to encourage and support large battery manufacturers to recycle used batteries. Factors that restrict the development of China's lead recycling industry are: First, environmental equipment costs are heavy. Enterprises with advanced technology and well-equipped environmental protection equipment are incapable of “small lead smelting” in towns and townships with backward technology and serious pollution. Second, there is not enough supervision. Without operating licenses, lead production was also carried out. In order to rectify the problem, the “small lead smelting” that was once closed was over and the fire was over. Third, industrial policies are not conducive to the development of formal enterprises. Excessive taxes have also weakened the ability of large, reclaimed lead companies to increase environmental protection.

Lead-acid battery industry development trend in China

The lead-acid batteries that have a history of more than one hundred years are still dominant in the market in the coming decades due to their low cost, simple technology, mature technology, low self-discharge, and maintenance-free requirements. The market space for power batteries may have an inflection point, and will continue to dominate the country's industrial development in the near future, and will also occupy a place in the medium term. In the long run, there will continue to be applications that do not require high weight ratio energy. At present, its original main application areas such as automotive, motorcycle, and backup power supplies have increased substantially, and new application areas such as electric bicycles and tour buses have been developed. The development of valve-regulated battery technology To meet the needs of high-tech power supplies such as UPS, power, communications and other equipment. Due to the continuous progress of lead-acid battery technology, the electric bicycle industry has achieved tremendous development and has contributed to reducing the pollution of fuel vehicles and fuel-powered motorcycles. The maintenance-free technology and the development of the grid-grid technology have satisfied the rapid development of the automotive industry. It can be said that the technological progress of lead-acid batteries in these application fields has made a real contribution to the improvement of national competitiveness.

The demand for small mobile power sources in industries such as power tools and electric bicycles has stimulated the rapid growth of the power battery industry. Most of the batteries used in electric bicycles are valve-regulated sealed lead-acid batteries. After performance improvement, they have achieved breakthroughs in specific energy and cycle life. However, there are still high-rate specific energy in the medium and high speeds. The shortcomings such as not enough life span affect the rapid growth of the electric bicycle industry to a large extent.

As an alternative tool for less developed countries, electric bicycles have developed rapidly in recent years, especially in China. From 29 million vehicles in 2000 to 12.09 million vehicles in 2005, the average annual growth rate has reached 174%. It can be expected that, for a long time to come, electric bicycle battery products will flourish. More than 95% of the batteries used in electric bicycles in China use lead-acid batteries. In 2006, the market capacity of electric bicycle batteries is 4 to 5 billion yuan. By 2015, the output value of electric vehicles in China will reach 100 billion yuan, of which supporting batteries will be 16 billion yuan. The secondary battery replacement cost reached 48 billion yuan, which is a huge market.

China's lead-acid battery industry development direction

(I) Encouraging enterprises to become bigger and stronger and increase industrial concentration

Promote industrial agglomeration effects, actively respond to various market risks, effectively integrate equipment, talent, and technology, reduce waste, form products with optimized structure, increase investment in environmental protection, effectively solve pollution problems in the production process, and further improve the backbone enterprises. Comprehensive strength, to achieve large-scale, group development.

(B) Lead-acid batteries show a growing trend

Seize the market to give, continue to expand the scale of lead-acid battery industry, and strive to produce about 131.75 million KVAH in 2010, sales revenue of 66 billion yuan.

(III) Development focus of lead-acid batteries

Although lead-acid battery technology continues to improve, but its specific power, cycle life and other issues are still the focus of industry research. Therefore, strengthening R&D strength, striving to improve the level of scientific research, and enhancing competitiveness are the only ways for industrial development. Through its role as a bridge and link, the association vigorously creates a platform for communication and exchange among enterprises, and forms joint R&D centers with upstream industries such as lead and separators, downstream vehicles and electromechanical equipment, and collectively joins foreign ALABC alliances or similar alliances for R&D. Strengthen the industry's R&D capabilities.

(D) Accelerate the adjustment of product structure and regulate the recycling and recycling market

Increase the proportion of new products, develop harmless and resource-saving products, focus on the development of sealed maintenance-free lead batteries, and gradually eliminate open-cell batteries. Accelerate the technological transformation of lead-acid battery enterprises, adopt advanced technological equipment, effectively control the environmental pollution problems in the production process, and achieve clean production. Encourage the research and development of colloidal lead-acid batteries, wound-type lead-acid batteries, and new types of bipolar batteries to increase specific power and lead utilization. Regulate the market for lead battery recovery and recycling, reduce the pollution of waste lead batteries to the environment, and develop in the direction of harmless and resource-saving.

(5) To expand and standardize export markets and avoid trade frictions

Seriously study the needs of the international market, make appropriate adjustments to the structure of export products, reduce the export of price-competitive products, and develop new application areas and markets. To occupy the market share at a low price will only cause a fatal blow to the export of lead-acid batteries in China. At the same time, it may be subject to anti-dumping lawsuits abroad, resulting in the product being subject to high anti-dumping duties and losing the right to raise prices. Therefore, the association should play the role of coordination in regulating foreign trade order and industrial development, protect the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises, establish a standardized order of competition, and prevent unfair low-cost export behavior. At the same time, we will study related policies in target market countries and consider setting up manufacturing bases overseas.