Electronics

With the continuous advancement of my country's energy transformation, vanadium batteries with the advantages of high safety, easy expansion, and long cycle life have ushered in development opportunities, attracting many companies to compete for layout. On July 13, Longbai Group, the leader in titanium dioxide, and China Nuclear Titanium Dioxide both disclosed the announcement on the layout of the vanadium battery industry.

According to the announcement, on July 12, the board of directors of Longbai Group reviewed and approved the "Proposal on Investing in the Construction of an Innovative Demonstration Project of Vanadium Pentoxide with an Annual Output of 30,000 tons of Vanadium Pentoxide in the Alkaline Pellet Wet Process of Vanadium-Iron-Iron Concentrate". The project has a total investment of 2.5 billion yuan and will be implemented in two phases, eventually reaching an annual output of 30,000 tons of 98% vanadium pentoxide and 7.2 million tons of iron ore concentrate alkaline pellets.

On the same day, CNNC announced that the company and Sichuan Welead Energy Co., Ltd. signed the "Joint Venture Agreement on the Establishment of Gansu Zetong Welead Vanadium Materials Co., Ltd." in Gansu Baiyin, and the two parties invested in the establishment of Gansu Zetong Welead Vanadium Materials Co., Ltd. The company will jointly promote the development of vanadium ore resources, the manufacture of vanadium electrolyte and the implementation of related supporting industry projects.

Qi Haishen, President of Beijing Teyi Sunshine New Energy, said: "Titanium dioxide enterprises have inherent advantages in the vanadium battery industry, including: the advantages of upstream resource products, the advantages of in-depth development and reuse of midstream chemical products and by-products, and the advantages of being able to assess the environmental impact assessment indicators. In addition, if the downstream new energy battery industry is deployed, the coordinated development of the entire industry chain between the resource end and the application end can be opened up, the utilization rate of products and by-products will be greatly improved, and it will also help reduce energy consumption and increase the added value of products. Titanium dioxide The stronger the competitive advantage of the enterprise, the greater the economic and social benefits of the enterprise will be significantly improved.”

Longbai Group said: "This project investment will help the company make full use of the vanadium resources in Panzhihua vanadium titanomagnetite, improve the company's comprehensive utilization of resources, and enhance the company's competitiveness and profitability; at present, the company's battery materials research institute is working In the future, the company will actively promote the industrialization of vanadium battery materials according to the vanadium battery market situation, and the implementation of this project will also lay a solid foundation for the company to enter the field of vanadium battery materials."

The vanadium battery market has broad prospects. GuidehouseInsights, an American energy consulting company, predicts that by 2031, the annual installed capacity of vanadium batteries in the world will reach 32.8GWh (about 1.6GWh in 2022), and the compound growth rate from 2022 to 2031 will be 41 GWh. %.

According to the announcement, Longbai Group owns the largest vanadium-titanium-magnetite mine in China, and reserves the mature technology of wet extraction of vanadium from iron concentrate. In order to improve the comprehensive utilization level of vanadium-titanium-magnetite resources and turn resource advantages into competitive advantages, the company established a vanadium-titanium-magnetite extraction technical working group in 2018. Vanadium technology, and the recovery rate of vanadium resources of this technology is higher than that of smelting and extracting vanadium.

"The cross-border layout of the vanadium battery industry requires full attention to relevant policy trends and industry development trends. As far as energy storage technology is concerned, several types of technologies have their own advantages and disadvantages, and the technology iteration speed is fast, so it is necessary to dynamically track the progress of relevant technologies; As far as the application of energy storage is concerned, it is necessary to fully consider the cost and safety indicators, as well as the acceptance of the downstream field; the third is to fully verify the advantages of transformation compared with battery companies, such as whether they have core technologies, market expansion progress, etc.” Zhongyuan Securities Mou Guohong, head of the research institute, said.