Wuhan Guli New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Guli New Energy") has recently completed an investment financing of tens of millions of yuan, with the investor being Dongfang Fuhai. This funding will be mainly used to promote the company's product research and development, production line construction, and team building.

Guli New Energy was established in June 2022, focusing on the development of high-capacity sodium-ion battery anode phosphorus-carbon materials. The core team of the company is composed of experts from Wuhan University of Technology, who have extensive experience in research and development and industrialization. The chief scientist, Professor Tang Haolin, has conducted 20 years of research in the field of key materials for lithium/sodium-ion batteries and fuel cells, leading several major scientific research projects at the national and provincial levels. In addition, Dr. Chen Gang, the general manager, not only has rich entrepreneurial and management experience in the field of new materials but also successfully designed and operated a new material production line with an annual output of 30,000 tons.

Sodium-ion batteries have attracted industry attention in recent years due to their low cost, high safety, wide operating temperature range, and excellent rate performance, serving as an effective complement to lithium-ion batteries. In particular, in application fields such as energy storage, backup power, and small-sized power equipment, the advantages of sodium-ion batteries make them more competitive. Currently, layered oxides and polyanion materials have become mainstream sodium battery materials on the market, with production capacities reaching ten-thousand-ton levels. Conversely, issues such as high cost and sodium plating limit the industrialization process of sodium-ion batteries.

To address this, Guli New Energy has shifted its research focus to phosphorus-carbon materials. This material uniformly disperses nanoscale red phosphorus in a carbon matrix, creating high-capacity anode materials with a higher cost-performance ratio. Guli New Collective has achieved achievements in the development of phosphorus-carbon materials, and has applied for 13 related patents, including 4 invention patents and 9 utility model patents, 7 of which have been authorized. Additionally, the company plans to apply for 10 new patents to strengthen its intellectual property protection.

According to Chen Gang, phosphorus-carbon materials increase the energy density by 25% compared to hard carbon. If calculated with the same performance, the cost of phosphorus-carbon can be reduced by 60%, and its fast-charging performance is 2-3 times better than hard carbon, which also helps to alleviate the issue of sodium plating. In the future, with mass production, the cost of phosphorus-carbon anode materials will be reduced to at least below 30,000 yuan/ton, and the gram capacity will exceed 1200 mAh/g, with the first efficiency reaching over 90%. By using phosphorus-carbon anode materials, sodium-ion batteries are expected to achieve a breakthrough in energy density of 200Wh/kg.

Chen Gang also pointed out that in the early stages of industrialization, phosphorus-carbon materials, like silicon-carbon materials, will be applied by mixing with hard carbon. According to Guli New Energy's calculations, when the sodium-ion battery anode fully adopts hard carbon materials, its cost is 50,000 yuan/ton. However, after mixing in 20% of phosphorus-carbon, the energy density can increase by 10%, and the cost can be reduced by 49%.