Two Asian firms will partner to build a billion square meters of lithium-ion battery separator capacity in China by the close of the decade.
Japanese chemicals manufacturer Asahi Kasei and China’s Shanghai Energy New Materials Technology (SENMT) plan to build a factory in the southeast province of Jiangxi next year, the former’s president Hideki Kobori told a business briefing.
SENMT will take a 51% stake of the partnership, with Asahi Kasei owning the rest.
The new factory will produce separators for storage systems starting from H1 next year, with plans to increase annual capacity from 100 million sq. meters to one billion sq. meters by 2028.
Shanghai Energy boasts strengths in cost-conscious production and local marketing while Asahi Kasei will offer the manufacturing technology of US separators subsidiary Celgard, reported news outlet Nikkei Asia.
Global separator shipments will rise to 6.1 billion sq. meters in 2026 from four billion sq. meters in 2020, Japan’s Yano Research Institute projects.
The market is being driven by demand among electric vehicle and electronic device industries.