Solid-state lithium ceramic battery (LCB) maker ProLogium Technology has disclosed it is constructing a factory in Taoyuan, northern Taiwan to expand annual production capacity from 0.4GWh at present to 1.0GWh, with completion scheduled for year-end 2019.
The capacity expansion is mainly to meet growing demand for LCB packs from the electric vehicle (EV) sector. As production cost for solid-state LCBs is much higher than LCBs with liquid or jelly electrolyte, no EV vendors have adopted solid-state LCB packs so far, according to industry sources.
However, solid-state LCBs have higher potential of hiking energy density and power output to shorten power charging time and increase endurance running distance than LCBs with liquid or jelly electrolyte at the same dimensions of batteries and carry no risks of firing or explosion.
To promote solid-state LCBs for EVs, ProLogium has offered licensing of its technology to attract EV vendors' investment in producing such batteries. ProLogium has cooperated with Europe-, China- and Japan-based EV vendors to develop solid-state LCBs, the sources said.
As ProLogium uses oxides as electrolyte of solid-state LCBs, the licensing could encourage fellow makers to replace sulfides with oxides as electrolyte materials, the sources added.
ProLogium has adopted BiPolar+3D manufacturing process to produce solid-state LCBs. While cells are conventionally in external series and/or parallel inside battery packs, BiPolar+3D features direct 3D (vertical and horizontal) series and/or parallel inside single cells to largely reduce cost for battery management and heat dissipation as well as dimensions and weights of batteries. Through internal 3D series and/or parallel, voltage and power storage of a single solid-state LCB cell can be hiked to 85.2V and 20KWh respectively.
Article translated by Adam Hwang
