GAC Group has been actively promoting its graphene batteries this year. The latest news is that GAC Group revealed on its interactive platform that graphene battery research and development is ongoing, and the technology is expected to enter mass production testing in real vehicles by the end of this year. It is understood that GAC Aion will be the first brand to use graphene batteries.
So, what is a graphene battery? How well does a graphene battery perform? Will graphene batteries replace lithium batteries?
From a market perspective, graphene batteries were quite popular in the battery industry a few years ago, but eventually faded into obscurity, with lithium batteries remaining the mainstream battery. To understand whether graphene batteries are good or not, we first need to understand what graphene batteries are.
A graphene battery is a honeycomb-shaped planar thin film formed by carbon atoms in an sp2 hybridization manner. It is a quasi-two-dimensional material with a thickness of only one atomic layer, hence it is also called single-atom-layer graphite. It is a new energy battery developed by utilizing the characteristic of lithium ions rapidly and massively moving between the graphene surface and the electrodes.
Graphene batteries have six major advantages:
1. Its energy storage capacity is three times that of the best products currently on the market. The specific energy of a lithium battery (based on the most advanced technology) is 180Wh/kg, while the specific energy of a graphene battery exceeds 600Wh/kg;
2. Electric vehicles powered by this battery can travel up to 1000 kilometers, and their charging time is less than 8 minutes;
3. Long service life. Its service life is four times that of traditional hydrogen fuel cells and twice that of lithium batteries;
4. Lightweight. The properties of graphene allow the battery to weigh half that of a traditional battery, thus improving the efficiency of machines that use this battery.
5. Graphene has many advantages over traditional batteries. In terms of lifespan, it is twice that of lithium batteries and four times that of hydrogen fuel cells.
6. Faster charging speed and more durable than lithium batteries at high temperatures.
Of course, such a good battery can't be without its flaws, otherwise it would have been mass-produced long ago. In fact, graphene batteries have very prominent drawbacks:
1. Incompatible process characteristics. The large specific surface area of graphene will bring a host of process problems to the dispersion and homogenization processes of existing lithium-ion batteries. The surface properties of graphene are greatly affected by its chemical state, resulting in many issues with batch stability, cycle life, and so on. Currently, it cannot meet a number of delicate requirements for production.
2. These graphene batteries on the market are not pure graphene batteries. They are just lithium batteries with some graphene-related technologies mixed in. Compared with traditional lithium batteries, the performance improvement they bring is only a little bit.
3. Graphene is very expensive, and its manufacturing process is also very advanced. The manufacturing process of graphene batteries is still not mature enough. Currently, it is only in the laboratory stage and cannot reach the point of mass production.
4. Currently, graphene has not yet reached the practical application stage, and there is still a long way to go before mass production.
Even GAC Group, while claiming that "this technology is expected to enter mass production testing in real vehicles by the end of this year," also emphasized that "whether this technology can ultimately achieve mass production still depends on the results of real vehicle verification. In addition, the realization of graphene battery fast charging technology still needs to solve problems such as cost and charging infrastructure."
