Japanese firms working together to build cutting-edge lithium-ion battery material

Japanese firms working together to build cutting-edge lithium-ion battery material

Over in Japan, reports indicate that a quartet of Japanese companies is banding up to mass-produce a cutting-edge lithium ion battery material, both domestically and overseas.

Kureha, Kuraray and Itochu are set to work together with public-private investment fund Innovation Network Corporation of Japan to produce negative electrodes – a core battery component – through a joint firm, the Nikkei says.

Both Kureha and Kuraray have established processes that turn a plant-derived material into charcoal for use in the negative electrodes. The companies say the new material can improve battery durability by as much as 30% and also halve the time required to charge EV and plug-in hybrids.

The partnership is to raise around 20 billion yen to build the necessary factories, with volume production set to begin in Japan by 2014; production is also targeted in the US, China as well as other locations following the start of domestic production.

Additionally, the alliance is looking at getting other Japanese manufacturers to develop other key materials for lithium ion batteries, with the vision being to pool each firm’s technology to jointly develop core components by 2017. The report adds that talks have already begun with some manufacturers.

The partnership and pooling of resources is designed to concentrate state-of-the-art materials technology and maintain Japan’s lead in this field, which is under threat from Chinese and South Korean rivals.

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Anthony Lim

Anthony Lim believes that nothing is better than a good smoke and a car with character, with good handling aspects being top of the prize heap. Having spent more than a decade and a half with an English tabloid daily never being able to grasp the meaning of brevity or being succinct, he wags his tail furiously at the idea of waffling - in greater detail - about cars and all their intrinsic peculiarities here.

 

Comments

  • Johnny on Jul 31, 2012 at 6:54 pm

    Hybrid cars with batteries will only give us a temporary solution to the ecosystem. But overtime, the damage will be more severe due to discarded batteries.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 1
  • Paint on Jul 31, 2012 at 11:33 pm

    With the Thais and Indons now leading auto manufacturing in the ASEAN region, it is high time Malaysia find a niche in hybrid and EV techs. We have to move into high income sector already and start being independent of the gas guzzling trucks and cars.

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  • this lithium-ion will get its source from rare-earth factory mainly from china

    after this they will get the source from lynas malaysia,yahoo

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 1
  • zebra on Aug 01, 2012 at 6:51 pm

    hope to see more of this and they get better materials that can be recycled. then it would be great; more players, cost lower when they share tech.
    Actually was wondering about 5 or 6 years ago, UTM use palm oil as biofuel for a prototype car. whatever happened to that project? was thinking we have so many oil palm, might as well put it to good use; like come countries using biofuel. hope that day will come. more sustainable fuel.

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