The price of copper foil for lithium batteries is rising, and related companies are expanding production.
On February 2, 2021, market data showed that the average prices of 6μm copper foil and 8μm copper foil rose to RMB 105,000/ton and RMB 89,000/ton respectively, representing increases of 16% and 26% compared to RMB 90,500/ton and RMB 70,500/ton in April of last year.
On February 1, Chaohua Technology announced that it plans to invest 12.26 billion yuan in Yulin City, Guangxi Province to build a lithium battery copper foil production base, which will have an annual output of 100,000 tons of high-precision electronic copper foil.
In addition, copper foil companies including Nord Copper, SK Group of South Korea, and Jiayuan Technology have recently increased their copper foil production capacity on a large scale.
What role does copper foil play in lithium batteries?
Copper foil for lithium batteries, used as the negative electrode current collector, accounts for 5%-8% of the cost of lithium batteries, making it an important lithium battery material.
In lithium batteries, copper foil serves as both a carrier for the negative electrode active material and a collector and transporter of negative electrode electron flow. Therefore, the tensile strength, elongation, density, surface roughness, thickness uniformity, and appearance quality of electrolytic copper foil have a significant impact on the manufacturing process of lithium-ion battery negative electrodes and the electrochemical performance of lithium-ion batteries.
The thickness of copper foil in lithium-ion batteries is typically between 7-20 μm. Currently, the copper foil thickness used in new energy vehicles is 6-12 μm, and the total weight of the copper foil in the vehicle exceeds 10 kg. The thinner the copper foil, the lighter the battery will be. At the same time, thinner copper foil also means lower resistance, thus improving battery performance.
Therefore, reducing the weight of copper foil on batteries, lowering the cost of copper foil raw materials, and simultaneously providing higher energy density have become key challenges for copper foil used in power lithium batteries. The future trend is towards using thinner and lighter lithium battery copper foil.
