The new energy automobile battery takes rare earth elements such as lanthanum and cerium as the main components of electrode materials, which has high safety, attenuation resistance, low temperature resistance and fast charging time.
Application of rare earth in new energy vehicles;
A, rare earth permanent magnet motor
Rare earth permanent magnet motor is a new type of permanent magnet motor which appeared in the early 1970s. Its working principle is the same as that of the electrically excited synchronous motor, but the difference is that the former uses permanent magnets instead of excitation windings for excitation.
Compared with the traditional electric excitation motor, the rare earth permanent magnet motor has obvious advantages such as simple structure, reliable operation, small volume, light weight, low loss and high efficiency, and the shape and size of the motor can be flexibly designed, which makes it highly valued in the field of new energy vehicles.
The rare earth permanent magnet motor in automobile mainly converts the electric energy of power battery into mechanical energy, drives the flywheel of the engine to rotate, and realizes the start of the engine.
Second, the rare earth power battery
Rare earth elements can not only participate in the preparation of electrode materials for mainstream lithium batteries at present, but also be used as raw materials for preparing positive electrodes of lead-acid batteries or nickel-hydrogen batteries.
1. lithium battery: due to the addition of rare earth elements, the structural stability of the material is greatly guaranteed, and the three-dimensional channel of active lithium ion migration is expanded to some extent, so that the prepared lithium ion battery has higher charging stability, electrochemical cycle reversibility and longer cycle life.
2. Lead-acid battery: Domestic research shows that the addition of rare earth is beneficial to improve the tensile strength, hardness, corrosion resistance and oxygen evolution overpotential of lead-based alloy of electrode plate, and the addition of rare earth in active components can reduce the oxygen evolution at the positive electrode and improve the utilization rate of positive active materials, thus improving the performance and service life of the battery.
3. Ni-MH battery: Ni-MH battery has the advantages of high specific capacity, high current, good charge-discharge performance and no pollution, so it is called "green battery" and is widely used in automobile, electronics and other fields. In order to keep the excellent high-speed discharge characteristics of Ni-MH battery and inhibit its life decay, Japanese patent JP2004 127549 introduced that the negative electrode of the battery can be composed of rare earth-magnesium-nickel-based hydrogen storage alloy.
Thirdly, the catalyst in the three-way catalytic converter.
Not all new energy vehicles can achieve zero emissions, such as hybrid vehicles and extended-range electric vehicles, which will release a certain amount of toxic substances during use.
In order to reduce automobile exhaust emissions, some vehicles will be forced to install three-way catalytic converters when they leave the factory. When the high-temperature automobile exhaust passes by, it will enhance the activity of CO, HC and nitrogen oxides through the built-in purifying agent, and urge them to complete the oxidation-reduction reaction and generate harmless gases, which is beneficial to environmental protection.
The main component of three-way catalytic converter is rare earth elements, and rare earth elements play a key role in it, such as storing materials, replacing some main catalysts and acting as catalytic additives. The rare earth used in the catalyst for tail gas purification is mainly a mixture of cerium oxide, praseodymium oxide and lanthanum oxide, and these rare earth minerals are abundant in China.
Four. Ceramic materials in oxygen sensors
Rare earth elements have unique oxygen storage function because of their special electronic structure, and are often used to prepare ceramic materials for oxygen sensors in electronic fuel injection systems, so that they have better catalytic effects. Electronic fuel injection system is an advanced fuel injection device used in carburetor-free gasoline engine, which is mainly composed of air system, fuel system and control system.
In addition to this time, rare earth elements are also widely used in gears, tires, car body steel and other parts. It can be said that rare earth is an essential element in the field of new energy vehicles.