As the heart of an electric vehicle, the battery plays a decisive role in the performance of the vehicle. Lithium-ion batteries, lead-acid batteries, fuel cells... What are the differences between these batteries? What is their performance? For this purpose, we specifically asked Dr. Wang Lianbang, a professor at the School of Chemical Engineering and Materials of Zhejiang University of Technology. Professor Wang has 15 years of battery research experience. He studied in Japan and focused on new power source technologies such as lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells. In recent years, Professor Wang has been working closely with leading battery companies in Zhejiang Province, such as Zhejiang Tianneng Group, to develop power lithium-ion batteries and solar hybrid vehicles. Professor Wang told reporters that the pure electric vehicles currently launched by various car companies mainly use lithium-ion batteries as the power of the vehicles.

　　At present, the negative electrodes of lithium-ion batteries generally use carbon materials, but there are four main cathode materials, namely lithium cobalt oxide, lithium manganate, lithium iron phosphate and ternary materials. Lithium ions made of lithium cobalt oxide and carbon materials are mainly used in mobile phones. Lithium ion batteries made of lithium manganate and ternary materials plus carbon materials are used in power tools. Only lithium iron phosphate and carbon materials are combined. Lithium-ion batteries are only used in cars and are also called lithium iron batteries or iron batteries. Due to the high price of lithium iron phosphate and the difficulty of technology and manufacturing, the price of power lithium-ion batteries is relatively high, resulting in the current high price of electric vehicles.

　　He told reporters that lithium-ion batteries have very high production requirements and are particularly sensitive to humidity. Therefore, it is necessary to use good equipment and factory conditions as well as high-quality technical workers to produce qualified lithium-ion batteries. The current gap between my country's lithium-ion battery technology and foreign advanced technology mainly lies in the quality of raw materials, equipment, and the quality of technical workers. Therefore, from this perspective, companies that do not have a large amount of capital to invest in equipment and high-quality raw materials cannot produce power lithium-ion batteries with reliable quality. Lead-acid batteries are the power batteries currently used in domestic electric bicycles.

　　Professor Wang described lead-acid batteries as “extremely vigorous”. He told reporters that lead-acid batteries were invented 150 years ago. For a while, everyone thought they were about to be eliminated, but thanks to the development of China's electric bicycle industry, it has gained a "second youth." Changxing in Zhejiang Province is the largest producer of lead-acid batteries in the country, accounting for more than 43% of the country's output.

　　The advantage of lead-acid batteries is that they are cheap. For batteries with the same power, their prices are only one-third to one-fifth of lithium-ion batteries. They can be discharged at high currents and have good "float charge" performance. They are often used as batteries in cars. ;It is also used as uninterruptible power supply or reserve power supply in the communication industry. Its disadvantages are greater pollution during manufacturing, low energy density, heavy weight, short lifespan, and low utilization rate of active materials in the battery, generally only about 35%.

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