Understand the market prospect of aluminum plastic film in my country

Core View

 

1.Aluminum plastic film

 

Aluminum-plastic film is the packaging material for soft-pack lithium batteries, and it is also a technically difficult link in the field of lithium battery materials, which basically relies on imports.

 

Aluminum-plastic film products have strong profitability (gross profit margin is 60-80%), far exceeding other materials, and the first localized enterprises will benefit significantly.

 

2.According to GGII

 

According to the data, in 2015, the output value of domestic soft-pack batteries reached 32.5 billion yuan, the demand for aluminum-plastic film for lithium batteries was 67.5 million square meters, and the market size was 2.12 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23%.

 

3.The future growth of domestic aluminum-plastic film market will come from two aspects

 

The first is import substitution.At present, more than 95% of the aluminum-plastic film market is mainly concentrated in the four major companies in Japan and South Korea:Dainippon Printing, Showa Denko, Toppan Printing (T&T, acquired by Selen Science and Technology) and South Korea Yumura Chemical The domestic aluminum-plastic film market accounts for less than 5%;

 

The second is the increase in the proportion of power battery soft pack technology.The ternary soft pack currently accounts for 20%-30% of the domestic power battery market, and the market share is expected to reach 50% in the next two years, which will drive the aluminum-plastic film Rapid growth in demand.

 

Aluminum Plastic Film Introduction

 

Aluminum-plastic film was jointly developed by Japan Showa and SONY in 1999.It is a packaging material for soft-pack lithium batteries.It is a high-strength, high-barrier multi-layer composite composed of various plastics, aluminum foils and adhesives.

 

Aluminum-plastic film has a high technical threshold.In order to ensure the long-term stable operation of the battery, the aluminum-plastic film needs to have extremely high barrier properties, good cold stamping formability, puncture resistance, stability and insulation.

 

The main structure of aluminum-plastic film:ON (surface layer)/AL (aluminum layer)/CPP (resin layer) consists of three layers of materials, of which the outermost nylon layer mainly plays a protective role; aluminum is the base material, which is waterproof and barrier.The role of the polypropylene is to separate the aluminum from the cell, preventing the leaked part of the liquid from corroding the aluminum.The adhesive bonds the nylon layer to the aluminum layer on the one hand and the aluminum layer to the polypropylene layer on the other hand.

 

The main use of the aluminum-plastic film for lithium batteries is as a packaging material for the battery core.In terms of naming, it is different from hard-shell packaging materials such as steel shells and aluminum shells.Therefore, lithium batteries packaged with aluminum-plastic films are usually called soft shells.Pack lithium battery.

 

Application prospect of soft pack lithium battery

 

The market space of aluminum-plastic film is closely related to the development trend of soft-pack lithium battery.Therefore, to analyze the application prospect of aluminum-plastic film, it is necessary to understand the relevant situation of soft-pack lithium battery.

 

The main application scope of the current soft pack lithium battery is as follows:

 

(1) Consumer electronics batteries:the main force of the current soft pack lithium battery, the penetration rate has been high

 

The soft-packed polymer lithium battery used in consumer electronics, almost all of the current consumer electronics use this kind of battery, and the penetration rate is already very high.

 

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the total sales of China's consumer electronics industry in 2012 reached 1,391 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.02%;

 

In 2013, the overall scale of my country's consumer electronics market reached 1,632.5 billion yuan, an increase of 17.36% over 2012, making it the world's largest consumer electronics market;

 

In 2014, the overall market size reached RMB 1,795.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10.00%.

 

The growth rate of consumer electronics has fallen to less than 10%.It can be deduced that the growth rate of consumer electronics soft-pack polymer lithium batteries and aluminum-plastic films will also slow down in the same proportion.

 

(2) Power battery:the main growth area of ​​soft pack lithium battery in the future

 

Currently mainstream battery packaging mainly adopts three structures:

 

1.Cylindrical (Johnson Controls, A123, Sanyo, Sony, etc.)

 

Main features

 

(1) The automated production process is mature, the product yield is high, and the pack cost is low;

 

(2) The cylindrical battery pack has strong consistency and high energy density;

 

(3) The battery is small, the heat dissipation area of ​​the battery pack is large, and the heat dissipation performance is better than that of the square battery;

 

(4) The production process is mature and the battery consistency is high.Low-capacity batteries are less likely to appear after batteries are combined.Even if there are low-capacity batteries, due to multiple parallel connections, the effect of inconsistency is eliminated to the greatest extent through self-balancing;

 

(5) However, there are generally doubts about cylindrical batteries in the world.For example, a typical pure electric bus needs about 20,000 26650 lithium iron phosphate single batteries, which are combined in series and parallel to form a power supply of about 576V/300~400Ah If there is a problem with one of the batteries, it will affect the power supply of the whole vehicle, causing the electric vehicle to lie down in the light, and causing various accidents in the serious.

 

2.Square hard shell (Guoxuan, SDI, AESC, Lishen, ATL, Hitachi, LEJ, etc.)

 

Main features:

 

(1) The shell is made of aluminum alloy, stainless steel, etc., and the interior is wound or laminated;

 

(2) The protection of the battery is stronger than that of the aluminum-plastic film battery, and the safety of the battery is greatly improved compared to the cylindrical battery

 

(3) The heavier casing results in limited energy density of the battery pack, low degree of automated production, low product yield and poor consistency.

 

3.Aluminum-plastic film soft pack battery (Enerdel, LGC, A123, AESC, polyfluoride, Wanxiang, CITIC Guoan, Ningde New Era, etc.)

 

Key advantages:

 

(1) Good safety performance:The soft-pack battery is structurally packaged with aluminum-plastic film.In the event of a potential safety hazard, the soft-pack battery will only bulge and crack at most, unlike the steel-shell and aluminum-shell batteries.An explosion will occur.

 

(2) Light weight:The weight of the soft pack battery is 40% lighter than that of the steel case lithium battery of the same capacity, and 20% lighter than that of the aluminum case battery.This is of great help to the lightweight and increased battery life.

 

(3) Large capacity:The capacity of the soft-pack battery is 10-15% higher than that of the steel-shell battery of the same size, and 5-10% higher than that of the aluminum-shell battery.

 

(4) Small internal resistance:The internal resistance of the soft pack battery is smaller than that of the lithium battery.At present, the minimum internal resistance of the domestic soft pack battery cell can be less than 35mΩ, which greatly reduces the self-consumption of the battery.

 

(5) Flexible design:The shape of the soft pack battery can be customized according to the needs of customers, and new cell models can be developed.

 

From the perspective of the technical route of power battery packaging, the three packaging modes are currently in parallel.Dr.Chen Guangsen, President of Hengyu New Energy, said in an interview with Gaogong Lithium Grid,

 

“At present, domestic mid-to-high-end new energy passenger vehicles, including BAIC and Changan, have begun to use ternary soft pack batteries, and this will also become the mainstream trend in the future market.Compared with the ternary cylindrical battery, the ternary soft pack battery is safer, and with the realization of mass production, the cost will be more advantageous.

 

“The ternary soft pack currently accounts for 20%-30% of the domestic power battery market.In addition to Hengyu, companies such as Weihong Power, Yuliang, and AVIC Lithium have also begun to put on the ternary soft pack power battery production line.The market share is expected to reach 50% in the next two years.”

 

There are signs of rapid growth in soft-pack power lithium batteries, but it is undeniable that there are still many defects in soft-pack power batteries, such as poor consistency; high cost, which needs to be solved through large-scale production; liquid leakage , by improving the quality of aluminum-plastic film to solve.

 

This is also the main factor for the divergence of the technical route of the pouch power battery.Therefore, from the perspective of investment, the future observation points of the pouch power battery mainly lie in the following points:

 

(1) The improvement of technology, observe how to solve the problem of consistency and leakage;

 

(2) Cost reduction, observe the scale production and application in detail;

 

(3) Whether the soft-pack battery can be recognized by car companies, and specifically observe whether the application ratio of soft-pack batteries in vehicle models continues to increase.

 

If the above problems can be solved well, the technical route of soft pack lithium battery will be quickly recognized and accepted by the market, and it will also become the fastest growing field.

 

 

Analysis of investment opportunities for aluminum plastic film

 

1.Import substitution

 

According to GGII data, in 2015, the output value of domestic soft-pack batteries reached 32.5 billion yuan, the demand for aluminum-plastic film for lithium batteries was 67.5 million square meters, and the market size was 2.12 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23%.

 

At present, more than 95% of the aluminum-plastic film market is mainly concentrated in the four major companies in Japan and South Korea:Dai Nippon Printing, Showa Denko, Toppan Printing (T&T, acquired by Selen Science and Technology) and South Korea's Yumura Chemicals.

 

The domestic aluminum-plastic film market accounts for less than 5%, and there is a large space for import substitution.It is expected that with the further improvement of the technical level of domestic enterprises, domestic aluminum-plastic film will be able to speed up import substitution through cost advantages.Enterprises that achieve localization will benefit.

 

2.The increase in the proportion of the soft pack technology route of the power battery

 

At present, ternary soft packs currently account for 20%-30% of the domestic power battery market, and the market share is expected to reach 50% in the next two years.