Exclusive Analysis|Electricity restriction limits  artificial graphite production capacity, natural graphite may be increased by doping in the future

Under the influence of double carbon power limit, the graphitization capacity affects 40%-50%, and gradually affects the downstream lithium battery production. In the second half of this year, China's provinces and cities issued relevant policies on double control of energy consumption. The high quality graphite electrode for reference. Graphitization capacity is mainly concentrated in Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Guangxi and other regions, of which the power supply situation in Inner Mongolia is severe.

In addition, the graphitization process consumes a high amount of electricity (about 15,000 KWH). Since September, local negative electrode enterprises have received a clear power restriction notice, and then successively reduced production. At present, the impact of graphitization capacity in China is still about 30% - 40%. Moreover, many graphitization expansion projects have also been delayed and suspended.

Graphitization processing is key to artificial graphite (negative electrode material). With the increasing demand for downstream lithium batteries, the production capacity of negative graphitization is becoming more and more important for battery companies.

The production capacity of artificial graphite is limited, the domestic natural graphite technology is poor, and the demand for natural graphite may increase slightly after doping. In 2020, the overall shipment of domestic negative electrode materials will be 365000 tons, the proportion of artificial graphite is about 84%, the proportion of natural graphite is about 16%. The main supplier of domestic natural graphite is Beterui, and the production capacity of other enterprises is relatively small.

Although compared with artificial graphite negative electrode materials, natural graphite negative electrode materials have the advantages of high capacity and low cost, but there are also the first low coulomb efficiency, poor cycle performance, low consistency, poor compatibility with electrolyte and other shortcomings. Generally, they need to be modified and applied to batteries. Modification treatment includes surface oxidation, surface coating, element doping and so on. For domestic enterprises, the technology development of artificial graphite is more mature, and it is difficult to switch the technology at the battery end. Because natural artificial graphite is used as the negative electrode material, other main materials also need to be adapted, such as electrolyte. Therefore, in the short term, the demand for natural graphite will not change significantly. In addition, the production expansion plan of domestic enterprises mainly focuses on the production of artificial graphite, and there is no production expansion plan for natural graphite.

However, at present, there will be products used with natural graphite doped with artificial graphite in the market. If the proportion of natural graphite doping is increased, the amount will be increased accordingly. In addition, the production lines of natural graphite and artificial graphite can be switched with each other, so the demand for natural graphite is expected to increase by 10% to 20% next year, view more graphite news contact us.