Starting from November 2nd this year, from 7am to 8pm daily, multiple roads including Yan'an Elevated Road and Nanbei Elevated Road prohibit the passage of "outer license plate" and "temporary license plate" small passenger cars, as well as taxis without passengers. Because new energy vehicle license plates are relatively easy to obtain, many people have switched to new energy vehicles, which has driven the sales of new energy vehicles and reignited their popularity.

In the past few years, thanks to subsidy policies, the Chinese new energy vehicle market has developed rapidly.

In the second half of 2019, new energy vehicles bid farewell to huge subsidies, with national subsidies significantly reduced and local subsidies fully withdrawn, officially entering the "post subsidy era". With the gradual decline of subsidy policies, the new energy vehicle industry is entering a "painful period". The reduction of subsidies will promote the transformation of the new energy vehicle market from 'policy oriented' to 'market-oriented' and 'product oriented'. The long-term sustainable development of China's new energy vehicle market should not only rely on government incentives, but also on product quality and service.

Most new energy vehicles use lithium-ion batteries as their power source. Unlike traditional internal combustion engines, electric vehicles have less pollution, but there are also potential risks to range and safety. After continuous product iteration, the performance and safety of lithium batteries have significantly improved. The establishment of Tesla's Shanghai factory has forced domestic manufacturers to accelerate their pace of catching up. In the process of further increasing sales, safety issues are of paramount importance. Data shows that in the first half of 2020 alone, there were 20 electric vehicle fire accidents in China, with an estimated fire accident rate of 0.047 incidents per 10000 vehicles. There are also countless cases of vehicle recalls.

Image | Battery Safety Issues

The safety issue of electric vehicles is not a small matter, especially in the fiercely competitive environment of pursuing range and performance. Safety issues are the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. Therefore, major car companies and upstream supply chain manufacturers are gradually beginning to attach importance to establishing a quality evaluation system for batteries.

Establishing a standardized quality evaluation system means clearly identifying which part of the production process is at fault for quality issues. Battery materials are the core of quality control. Taking positive electrode materials as an example, once the impurity content exceeds the standard, it can cause battery short circuit failure or even lead to battery explosion and spontaneous combustion. For lithium battery materials, the analysis of impurity composition and size information is extremely important.

Figure | Hazards of Impurities in Positive Electrode Materials

Cleanliness analysis is a test for analyzing impurity particles, but the information content of traditional cleanliness analysis methods is limited. Simply put, engineers need to determine the specific source of impurities through composition analysis, as the size and composition of impurities vary in different stages of production. However, according to existing evaluation criteria, the composition analysis of impurities is separated from the morphology and size information, which obviously cannot correspond to the specific production process. You can only obtain the composition of all impurities or the specific morphology and size of each impurity.

Figure | Cleanliness Analysis Chemical Method: Chemical Titration to Determine Impurity Components

Image | Cleanliness Analysis Optical Microscopy Method: Only capable of detecting impurity particle size

Obviously, a cleanliness analysis method that combines morphology detection and composition analysis is essential for improving the quality management of battery materials. As an advanced characterization method, scanning electron microscopy can already achieve the combined analysis of morphology and composition. However, due to its low efficiency, it has only been used as an auxiliary detection method for a long time.

But technological progress is endless. Based on the previous generations of automatic scanning electron microscopes ASPEX and Explore 4, the Dutch Funa electron microscope has pushed the testing efficiency forwardji致The all-new Particle X fully automatic lithium battery cleanliness analysis system can efficiently analyze impurities related to lithium batteries.

With the help of the Particle X system, you can easily obtain information on the morphology, size, and composition of all impurity particles, and automatically generate reports. Multiple samples with a diameter of 47mm can be placed at once and automatically scanned for analysis.

Specially designed sample table