The world’s first commercially operated aluminum-ion battery company, APh ePower, was awarded the 17th Innoaward on December 1, affirming the team’s innovative technology as a solution to the flood of battery waste and proposing brand-new green-energy and environmental-protection solutions.
APh ePower pointed out that the global energy-storage industry is developing rapidly and battery technology has attracted much attention. However, mainstream products such as lead-acid batteries have high pollution and lithium-ion batteries have frequent accidents, causing many safety concerns. Moreover, the key recycling system is not yet mature and the low recycling rate in various countries and the difficulty of establishing recycling systems have become a major challenge to the development of the global energy-storage industry.
Proper recycling and disposal of obsolete batteries has always been a key issue for the energy-storage industry when moving towards green energy and environmental protection. In recent years, the domestic lead-acid battery recycling rate has reached more than 90%, ranking among the best. However, in many countries, the disposal of battery waste acid is still a serious environmental threat. In addition, lithium-ion batteries are difficult to process and dangerous because of their complex structure; the recovery rate in various countries is extremely low, with the USA and Australia both being less than 5%. There is also no comprehensive recycling mechanism domestically. It is foreseeable that a large amount of battery waste will bring about high environmental and social costs in the future, which should not be underestimated.
As the world’s first commercialized aluminum-ion battery company, APh ePower has pursued safety and environmental protection since the research and development stage, and has completely refrained from using conflict minerals. It has also simultaneously developed technologies that recycle key materials and reuse them as raw materials, putting the spirit of a circular economy into practice. APh ePower said that, since entering the Luzhu Science Park in 2019 and building the first-generation plant, there have been significant breakthroughs in research and development and the energy density has been greatly improved. Furthermore, the technology for the trial mass-production process has been mastered and cooperation on projects with domestic and foreign manufacturers is expected to be conducted in 2021.
In addition to safety and environmental friendliness, aluminum-ion batteries also have several distinguishing features, such as fast charging and discharging, high weather resistance, and long life, and still functioning normally in extreme environments.
After receiving the award, Gabriel Wu, the Deputy Managing Director and Operation Director of APh ePower, declared that aluminum-ion batteries are one of the technologies that Taiwan has the best opportunity in which to be a world leader. Through various unique and outstanding performances, it is expected to soon stimulate the market.
With the two core strategies of being knowledge-intensiveness and distinctive APh ePower is committed to developing satisfying products for the market, targeting applications such as large-scale energy storage, uninterruptible power supply systems, and electrical transportation vehicles while striving to bring new values.
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