The cathode material is the source of lithium ions and determines the performance of lithium ion batteries. Cathode material is a decisive factor in the electrochemical performance of lithium batteries, which directly determines the energy density and safety of the battery, and then affects the overall performance of the battery.

Since the cathode material accounts for more than 40% of the cost of lithium battery materials, its cost also directly determines the overall cost of the battery, so the cathode material plays an important role in the lithium battery, and directly leads the development of the lithium battery industry.

Lithium batteries are generally divided according to the cathode material system, and can be divided into lithium cobalt oxide, lithium manganate, lithium iron phosphate, ternary materials and other technical routes.

Among them, lithium cobalt oxide cathode material, as the first generation of commercial lithium battery cathode material, has the advantages of good electrochemical performance, excellent processing performance and relatively high specific capacity, and is widely used in small rechargeable batteries.

However, the high cost of lithium cobalt oxide material (metal cobalt is expensive), low cycle life, poor safety performance, in recent years by the ternary cathode material to replace part of the market share.

In the field of ultra-thin electronic products, due to the advantages of lithium cobalt acid volume energy density and good rate performance can not be replaced. It is expected that lithium cobalt oxide cathode materials will develop in the direction of high pressure and high safety in the future.

Lithium manganate is the earliest lithium battery cathode material except lithium cobalt oxide. Compared with lithium cobalt oxide, it has the advantages of rich resources, low cost, no pollution, good safety performance, and good rate performance.

However, its low specific capacity and poor cycle performance, especially poor high temperature cycle performance, have greatly restricted its application. Lithium manganate batteries will mainly have a certain market share in logistics vehicles, as well as in the field of mini passenger cars that focus on cost and have relatively low mileage requirements.

At present, the widely used cathode materials are lithium iron phosphate and ternary materials. Among them, ternary materials have high energy density and good electrochemical performance. At present, they are usually used in the field of passenger cars, especially long endurance and high performance passenger cars.

Lithium iron phosphate has the advantages of high safety and low cost, and is widely used in the field of electrochemical energy storage and commercial vehicles. At the same time, with the optimization of the system structure, lithium iron phosphate batteries are increasingly used in mid-range passenger cars.