天目湖先进储能技术研究院

On July 14, the "BASF - Yangtze River Delta Physics Research Center New Energy Vehicles and energy Storage Joint Research Center" was unveiled. Smooth is the biggest experience of both parties in this cooperation. Hu Jiangping, deputy director of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that Liyang's new energy industry chain, business environment, innovation environment and talent environment are already perfect, and it is the best choice for the Yangtze River Delta Physics Research Center to carry out cooperative research and development with BASF.

In the 10 years of laying out the new energy industry in Liyang, the joint construction with the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has been for 7 years, incubating and attracting more than 60 new energy scientific and technological innovation enterprises, including 3 potential unicorns and 9 gazelle enterprises, and applying for more than 600 invention patents... How to crack the "two skins" of science and technology economy, this county-level city in southern Jiangsu has worked together with the top domestic scientific research institutes to "explore the road".

Into the Liyang High-tech Zone, the area with the highest degree of industrial agglomeration in Liyang, it seems that a "map of production, university and research" is spread out in front of you, and every "punch" a place, "innovation password" will gradually emerge. Ye Minghua, secretary of the Liyang Municipal Party Committee, said that around the goal and vision of "creating a national high-tech and toward a city of science and production", Liyang High-tech Zone focused on leading industries and key projects and continued to make efforts to climb to new practical actions to add new momentum to the construction of green rising quality cities in southern Jiangsu.

"Industrialization" carved into "platform gene"

Into the Tianmuhu Advanced Energy Storage Technology Research Institute, in a variety of professional instruments named after the spectrometer, analyzer and other laboratories, researchers are conducting various types of cell and material testing and failure analysis. At present, the institute has built a cutting-edge technology center, test and analysis center, failure analysis center, process engineering center and other functional centers, and established cooperation with more than 400 power battery upstream and downstream enterprises, including Huawei, Geely Automobile, Ningde Times, LG and other leading enterprises, with a revenue of more than 130 million yuan in 2022. Zheng Jieyun, executive vice president of Tianmuhu Advanced Energy Storage Technology Research Institute, said: "To solve where research and development funds come from, research institutions themselves need to have market competitiveness in order to achieve sustainable development."

The Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the first unit to carry out research on lithium-ion batteries and sodium-ion batteries in China, and Liyang's forward-looking new energy industry layout provides an excellent "testing ground" for the technology incubation of the physics institute. In 2017, the new energy industry accelerated into a potential, Liyang advanced layout of the innovation end, with the Institute of Physics to build Tianmuhu Advanced Energy storage Technology research Institute, committed to building a first-class domestic research and development institutions, by the Chinese Academy of Engineering known as the "father of China's lithium battery" Chen Liquan served as honorary president, the Chinese Academy of Sciences researcher Li Hong served as the chief engineer.

Focusing on the full-chain development mode of "original innovation, technology cultivation, engineering amplification, and industrial incubation", Tianmuhu Advanced Energy Storage Technology Research Institute has carved "industrialization" into "platform genes".

In November last year, Academician Chen Liquan, on his way to Changzhou to participate in the World Industry and Energy Internet Expo, asked Zheng Jieyun as soon as they met: Are there any new incubated enterprises recently? Zheng Jieyun introduced that in the system of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, there are few precedents for building a scientific research platform for an industry. On the one hand, the power battery industry has the characteristics of long chain and large quantity, on the other hand, this is also an innovative exploration of the Physics Institute and Liyang, to build a scientific research platform with a corporate operation and management model.

Since its settlement, the Institute has actively promoted the industrial application of innovation achievements, and has incubated a number of hard technology companies including Zhongke Sodium, Weilan New Energy, Tianmu Lead, including key materials, batteries, equipment, systems and recycling, involving solid-state batteries, sodium-ion batteries, silicon carbon anode materials and other next-generation energy storage and power battery technologies, with an estimated value of more than 30 billion yuan. Original technologies such as sulfide solid state batteries, low-temperature electrolytes, and low-cost energy storage batteries are continuing to incubate and land, and the "Zhongke Department" innovation ecological chain is basically taking shape. It is reported that the institute has launched stock reform and strives to explore a path for the industrialization cooperation of the national institute.

In 2018, the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences deepened cooperation with Liyang and established the Yangtze River Delta Physics Research Center, which also adopted the corporate operation and management mode. Li Hong introduced that the corporate operation mechanism is more flexible, and it can be encouraged through treatment, equity and other ways to recruit enough compound talents with industrialization experience; In addition, university research institutes focus on solving the problem of "from 0 to 1", corporatization is closer to market demand, and you can focus on investing resources to solve the problem of market demand, and the advantage is to solve the problem of "from 1 to N".

Yin Liang, an associate researcher at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was a postdoctoral researcher at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in the United States. After returning to China in 2021, Yin Liang established the Yin Liang Scientist Studio of the Yangtze River Delta Physics Research Center. "When we do scientific research in the United States, we tend to do basic research, and now our research pays more attention to the application side." In Liyang, we maintain extensive and frequent exchanges with upstream and downstream enterprises, effectively shortening the time from laboratory samples to the application of scientific research results in the finished car." The manganese based cathode material developed by Yin Liang's team has broken through the technical difficulties of high capacity and long cycle and reached the industry-leading level. At present, it is jointly developing manganese 3C batteries, small power batteries, long-life power batteries and energy storage batteries with new energy head enterprises.

Crack the corporate "choice difficulty"

Recently, Langu (Changzhou) New Energy Co., Ltd. completed more than 100 million yuan A+ round of financing. Settled in Liyang less than two years, Langu New Energy has achieved the mass production of thousand-ton solid electrolytes. In the preparation stage of the enterprise, there are many optimistic about this "potential stock". In the "snatch enterprise war", the perfect industrial innovation ecology and the profound understanding of the industry by the government departments made Liyang ultimately "win".

Dr. Li Lifei, chairman and general manager of Langu New Energy, graduated from the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and has been engaged in the research and industrialization of key materials for lithium batteries for a long time. "The policy advantage of Liyang is not the most prominent, but Liyang has the strongest technical support introduced by physics, and the Liyang government and enterprises have a high sense of frequency, talking about power batteries, everyone is very excited and has a common language." This "moved" Li Lifei.

Where does this sense of "synchrony" come from? Ten years ago, Boston Battery, once known as the "rival of Tesla", built the first battery cell production plant in China in Liyang, but eventually stopped production due to internal management and policy adjustments. Liyang did not give up, but took this "failure" as "enlightenment". From 2016 to 2017, Liyang successively introduced the upstream and downstream leading enterprises of the new energy industry chain, such as Ningde Times, Codaly, Pulailai, Liwin Laser, and SAIC Group, and launched the industrial layout in an all-round way.

Investment is investment. Xu Weiyu, deputy director of Liyang High-tech Zone Investment Promotion Bureau, said: "Attracting projects is not simply a policy, but more attention should be paid to project characteristics and industry barriers. We pay great attention to cultivating the learning ability of investment promotion personnel, from industrial categories to subdivisions, from investment logic to research and evaluation, we do our homework on every project." Dr. Tang Kun, founder and executive chairman of Zhongke Sodium, believes that Liyang has a "vision" and investment personnel have professional business investment thinking.

Big courtyard, leading enterprises and other "industry top flow" for Liyang attracted the first batch of scientific and technological innovation "pioneers". Zhongke Sodium Technology Co., Ltd. is the first domestic enterprise focusing on the development and manufacturing of sodium ion batteries. The founding team members were all from the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and settled in Liyang at the end of 2017. At the same time that enterprises are deeply cultivating the track, Liyang is working hard to improve the service supporting facilities. Tang Kun said: "Liyang gives enterprises the most comfortable pro-Qing relationship between government and business, which is the most needed growth environment."

Zhongke Sodium has completed the industrial incubation from small trial, pilot trial to mass production in Liyang, and has now built production lines in Fuyang, Anhui, Taiyuan, Shanxi and Yangquan, Shanxi. Langu New Energy has also established subsidiaries in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province and Zibo, Shandong Province. Pan Yiming, deputy director of the Liyang High-tech Zone Management Committee, said: "The development of enterprises need to carry out strategic layout, when attracting enterprises, we support enterprises to go out and eliminate their 'worries'."

Not only "vision", Liyang more "long-term vision" - leaving "can not move away" R & D headquarters. In April this year, the engineering center of the Central Research Institute of Langu New Energy settled in Liyang High-tech Zone, Li Lifei said: "The engineering center is mainly responsible for the research and development of solid electrolyte powder, new solid electrolyte materials, and solid electrolyte pilot applications, and is a bridge between the company's research and development, customer demand and the base mass production line."

Rotating industry "flywheel effect"

In the strategic layout of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, "One village and three lakes" (Beijing Zhongguancun headquarters, Huairou Yanqi Lake large device platform, Dongguan Songshan Lake neutron application and material science, Liyang Tianmu Lake achievement transformation and academic exchange), Liyang is the only county-level city. This also means that Liyang does not have a "big city aura".

However, more attractive than "big city" is "big industry". In 2022, the output value of Liyang power battery industry exceeded 100 billion yuan, the annual output accounted for about 15% of the country, and the scale achieved the first county in the country.

The scientific talents who want to do industrialization are here. At the end of 2018, Wu Fan returned from Harvard University to join the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, becoming one of the youngest doctoral supervisors. A week after joining the physics Institute, Wu Fan came to Liyang to build a new sulfide all-solid-state battery laboratory. At present, Wu Fan's team has trained nearly 40 postdocs, postgraduate students and engineers, and undertaken 15 national, provincial and ministerial research projects. Up to now, Tianmuhu Advanced Energy Storage Technology Research Institute and Yangtze River Delta Physics Research Center have more than 500 scientific research personnel, of which more than 40% are technical personnel with a master degree, and 18 scientist studios have been established.

Investors who want to "gold" the future are also here. In the "Electric China" series of forums in 2023 - "The Second National Sodium Battery Seminar" and "Tianmuhu Advanced Battery Industry Innovation Forum and solid-state Battery Seminar", thousands of experts and scholars in the field of new energy, entrepreneurs, and fund investors from across the country gathered in Liyang. Dr. Dong Xiaoxiao, partner of GRC Fuhua Capital, said that many battery companies in Liyang have advanced technology and rich experience in industrialization, and investing in Liyang is a bet on the development of new energy industry. According to statistics, Liyang holds an average of more than 30 high-end forums, academic conferences and theme salons every year, attracting more than 20,000 participants.

Innovation chain, industrial chain, capital chain, talent chain "chain chain", together for Liyang "industrial flywheel" transmission power. From start-up to acceleration, how does Liyang turn the "flywheel effect" of the industry?

Platform import. Zhongke Sodium, Weilan New Energy and Tianmu Lead are the "initial enterprises" incubated by the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Liyang, and have now "run" into the forefront of the subdivision track. Tianmu Lead focuses on the research and development and production of core battery materials such as nano silicon carbon anode, and is the first "potential unicorn" enterprise in Liyang, and is conducting a new round of financing. "There were hundreds of investors who wanted to invest but couldn't," said a person familiar with the matter. In April this year, Zhongke Sodium completed the B round of financing, and in November last year, Weilan New Energy completed nearly 1.5 billion yuan of D round financing. The first generation of "Chinese science Department" enterprises have won the favor of capital, leading top investment institutions to pay attention to Liyang.

"Chain" attraction. The core products of Langu New Energy are liquid electrolyte, mixed solid-liquid electrolyte and solid electrolyte materials. Zhongke Sodium and Weilan New Energy are its important downstream customers, which is one of the reasons why Langu New Energy chooses Liyang. Jiangsu Guxin Energy Technology Co., Ltd. in the physical institute of resources grafted down to Liyang, the company's general manager Guo Xifeng image with "your company is my warehouse" to describe the Liyang industrial chain is complete, "the opposite company open forklift can transport raw materials to our company."

Extended "chain" cultivation. Yaoshi Lithium Battery Technology Co., Ltd. focuses on the field of high safety and high energy density solid state lithium-ion batteries, and Weilan new energy source participates in its incubation. The first generation of "Chinese science Department" enterprises differentiated cultivation of "second-generation enterprises", Weilan new Energy is very few domestic enterprises with solid state battery core technology patents, Li Guogang, head of company strategy, said: "Investment Yaoshi because we are optimistic about solid state battery technology can be widely used in the consumer market."

The "industrial flywheel" of new energy is rolling forward, and the gears of more "industrial flywheels" are also turning. At present, the four major platforms of advanced metal device public technical service platform, medical application physics public technology platform, sodium-ion battery innovation platform and photovoltaic solar cell R&D platform created by the Yangtze River Delta Physics Research Center "reflect" the next generation industrial layout of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Liyang.

"Combined with the national needs, industrial prospects, the physical institute's own technical capabilities and Liyang's industrial environment, we decided to continue to open up new racetracks." Liyang has a good business environment and consistent policies, and we have established a deep foundation of trust with Liyang over the years, and researchers can do it freely." Zhang Xiaotian, general manager of the Yangtze River Delta Physics Research Center, introduced that a number of cutting-edge technological achievements such as PECVD semiconductor equipment project, plant intervention medical components project, heterojunction photovoltaic project, solid state sodium battery project are also gradually moving from the laboratory to the production line.

From the landing of the platform to the standing of the industry, how long does it take to "go"?

The distance between the first floor, which is the distance from scientific research results to experimental products;

The width of the road, which is the distance from upstream enterprises to downstream enterprises;

Within a garden, this is the distance from original innovation to industrial transformation.

Shuttling through this extensive "industry-university-research map", technology, capital, talent and other innovative resources are highly aggregated and organically linked, opening up one after another "blocking point" of industry-university-research integration, and crossing one after another "valley of death" of scientific and technological achievements.

Through this "map", scientific and technological innovation is continuously injecting strong momentum into economic growth.

To create a deep integration model demonstration of "science and production city", Liyang walked and explored continuously.