40% of the price of electric vehicle batteries is taken up by cathode materials containing expensive cobalt. In order to lower the price, less cobalt should be used while increasing the capacity, and the UNIST faculty startup company has presented the best alternative. It is the 'Ni98 NCMA (NiCoMnAl) single crystal material', which is expected to be the 'high-nickel king'.

UNIST (President Yong-Hoon Lee) announced on the 18th that SMLAB, founded by Professor Jae-Pil Cho of the Department of Energy and Chemical Engineering, has developed a cathode material for electric vehicle batteries that reduces the expensive cobalt (Co) content to less than 1% and increases the nickel (Ni) content to 98%.

Nickel (Ni) content is a factor that determines battery capacity, and this is the first time that the development of a cathode material with a nickel (Ni) content of up to 98% has been reported.

Cathode materials (NCM, NCA) with a nickel content of 80% or more are commonly called 'high-nickel materials'. They have attracted attention in the battery industry because they exhibit high capacity while minimizing the use of expensive cobalt. The core technology is to improve life characteristics while increasing mileage by maximizing the nickel content, and SM Lab has increased the nickel content to 98%.

Typically, a 1% increase in nickel content will increase the capacity by 2Ah (ampere-hours) per kilogram of material. Increasing the nickel content from 90% to 98% will result in a 16Ah (ampere-hour) increase in capacity.

“Considering that the amount of cathode material generally used in electric vehicle batteries is 100 kg, the capacity increases by 1600 Ah (ampere hour), which leads to an increase in driving range,” said Jae-Pil Cho, Distinguished Professor at UNIST and CEO of SM Lab. “In fact, the realized capacity of a battery cell using Ni98 cathode material is 230 Ah/kg.”

As battery capacity increases, lifespan and stability may decrease. SM Lab has improved this by applying a ‘new ceramic coating material.’

The nickel content of high-nickel materials currently commercialized is about 88-90%, and when synthesizing cathode materials, a process (washing process) must be performed to wash away lithium impurities remaining on the surface of the material with water. However, during the washing process, a large amount of elements dissolve in water, making it difficult to secure mass production quality. This is why three domestic battery manufacturers have not yet developed it, even though they presented the theoretical maximum nickel content that can be mass-produced at the '2021 The Battery Conference' as 94%.

Another problem is that current commercial cathode materials are in a 'polycrystalline form', which is made up of very small particles. Polycrystalline materials are easily broken during rolling, a process used to manufacture battery materials. Rolling is the process of making a plate of a certain thickness by passing an aluminum plate coated with a cathode material through rotating rolls. Polycrystalline materials are broken during this process, promoting unnecessary reactions within the battery. This increases gas generation and affects the charge/discharge cycle, which reduces the lifespan. SM Lab has significantly reduced this problem by making cathode materials in a ‘single crystal form.’

The newly developed Ni98 NCMA single crystal material is also advantageous in unit price competition because the cobalt content, which is the most expensive component, is less than 1%. This is because cathode materials with a nickel content of 90% (Ni90) usually use more than 5% of cobalt, which increases the price.

Professor Cho said, “SM Lab has succeeded in developing a cathode material with 98% nickel content two years ahead of its competitors,” and “We are planning to verify mass production in early 2022.”

Meanwhile, SM Lab, a startup established in July 2018, possesses the technology to mass-produce NCM(A) and NCA with a nickel content of 83% or more in a single crystal form without a washing process. It plans to increase the production of this single crystal cathode material from the current 7,200 tons to 21,600 tons by July 2023. SM Lab’s accumulated investment attraction amounts to KRW 64 billion.