Ecopro announced on the 17th that its cumulative sales of nickel-cobalt-aluminum (NCA) cathode materials, a key component of secondary batteries, have surpassed 300,000 tons (t) as of the first half of this year. This amount is enough to produce approximately 3 million electric vehicles.
Since starting the commercial production of NCA cathode materials in 2008, Ecopro has sold about 100,000 tons of NCA cathode materials for power tools and electric bicycles by 2021. Since 2022, as the demand for batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage systems (ESS) has increased, it has sold approximately 200,000 tons of NCA cathode materials.
The NCA cathode material is the first product Ecopro developed after starting its secondary battery business in 2004. The NCA material has an energy density about 20–30% higher than that of conventional nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) materials, but the process is complicated, resulting in high technical barriers.
Ecopro, which challenged the secondary battery market previously dominated by Japan in power tools, has achieved technological internalization by directly manufacturing the equipment necessary for development. Following the completion of precursor production facilities in 2005, it began to take a major leap as an NCA cathode material corporation by acquiring the cathode material business from Cheil Industries in 2006.
Ecopro's capabilities in NCA cathode material development stepped up significantly due to its collaboration with Sony, which was the world's top secondary battery manufacturer at the time. Sony dispatched technical personnel to Ochang, North Chungcheong Province, to request the removal of technical barriers and to reduce residual lithium generated during the cathode production process. Typically, when the nickel content exceeds 80%, the level of residual lithium is about 10,000 ppm (1%).
Sony requested that this be lowered to 2,000 ppm (0.2%). Through Sony's technical guidance, Ecopro's high-nickel cathode manufacturing technology rapidly advanced, and in 2013, it successfully tested and supplied 6 tons of residual lithium battery cathodes to Sony.
Choi Mun-ho, CEO of ECOPRO BM, reflected, "What Sony demanded at the time was a high-nickel NCA that did not exist in the world," and noted, "Although we couldn't improve all the disadvantages of NCA, we were able to diversify our customers in a short period based on hundreds of prototypes we had researched and developed challengingly."
Since 2013, as demand for medium and large secondary batteries, such as electric bicycles, has increased, Ecopro has begun developing and selling NCA products that meet market demand. Efforts to increase nickel content, which is closely related to output, have also continued.
Samsung SDI requested Ecopro to develop a high-nickel cathode material containing more than 90% nickel, and starting in 2015, Ecopro was able to supply NCA cathode materials to Samsung SDI. Accordingly, the performance of high-nickel NCA initially started with a residual lithium content of 80% and has been increased to 88% and 91%, with a product containing a 95% ratio of NCA currently in development.
Collaboration with Samsung SDI led to the establishment of a joint venture, Ecopro EM, in 2021, and all NCA cathode materials produced by Ecopro EM are supplied to Samsung SDI.
Ecopro is expanding its applications beyond power tools to electric vehicles and ESS, increasing its sales volume. In particular, as the ESS market has recently expanded, the sales volume of Ecopro's cathode materials for ESS has increased sixfold compared to last year in 2023.