Japan’s Asahi Kasei establishes dry-process lithium-ion battery separator JV in China

SINGAPORE (ICIS)–Japanese chemical firm Asahi Kasei on Wednesday said that it has obtained the necessary approvals to establish a dry-process lithium-ion battery (LIB) separator joint venture with Shanghai Energy New Materials Technology Co in China.

Asahi Kasei’s wholly owned subsidiary Polypore and Shanghai Energy New Materials Technology Co earlier in January this year reached an agreement in to establish the joint venture, the company said in a statement.

The joint venture firm, Jiangxi Enpo New Materials Co, will be 51% owned by Shanghai Energy New Materials Technology Co, with the remaining stake held by Polypore.

Based on a license from Polypore’s subsidiary Celgard, for technology and intellectual property related to dry-process polypropylene (PP) separator, the joint venture will manufacture and sell high-quality, high-performance dry-process separator in China for LIBs used in energy storage systems (ESS) and electric-drive vehicles (EDVs), it said.

The separator is a thin microporous film of polyolefin placed between the cathode and anode of lithium-ion batteries.

The new joint venture is scheduled to start production in 2022 with a capacity of 100m m2/year with plans to raise capacity to 1bn m2/year by around 2028 in line with demand growth, the company said.

“The LIB market in China is the world’s largest and growing rapidly centered on EDV applications.  As the Chinese government enacts policies for decarbonisation, significant additional growth is forecasted in ESS applications in combination with renewable energy,” it said.

Financial details of the project were not disclosed.