GGII: China's lithium battery pulping system market is expected to exceed 6 billion yuan by 2027

The Zhitong Finance App learned that according to research data from the Advanced Industrial Research Institute (GGII), China's lithium battery pulping system market size in 2024 (according to revenue statistics) was about 4.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of more than 15%. The main reason for the decline is the slowdown in the overall expansion of production in the lithium battery industry in 2024. Looking ahead, as the NEV and energy storage markets continue to grow, China's lithium battery pulping system market is expected to exceed 6 billion yuan by 2027.

The main growth drivers include: 1) domestic pulping equipment companies are speeding up the pace of “going overseas” and the export scale continues to expand; 2) It is expected that by 2027, the enthusiasm of China's lithium battery industry to expand production will gradually resume, and the additional production capacity is expected to exceed 350 GWh, which in turn will drive the continued growth in demand for pulping system equipment.

Analysis and forecast of China's lithium battery pulping system market size in 2023-2027 (100 million yuan)

Note: 1) The data is the revenue caliber; 2) The lithium battery pulping system includes a feeding system, a pulping machine, a slurry post-processing system, etc., and does not include a treatment system for materials such as positive and negative electrodes; 3) The data includes the overseas business revenue of Chinese pulping equipment; same as below.

In 2024, the lithium battery pulping process showed the following characteristic trends:

1) Currently, the field of pulping equipment shows a parallel pattern of multiple technology routes, and the penetration rate of circulating high-efficiency pulping systems is constantly increasing.

With strong stability, adaptability, long-term process accumulation and extensive market verification, Double Planet Pulping is still the mainstream choice at this stage, but its efficiency and energy consumption issues have become an important direction for continuous optimization in the industry. Recirculating pulping has characteristics such as high efficiency and low energy consumption, and is gradually expanding its application in leading lithium battery companies, and has become one of the key technical directions for improving pulping efficiency. Although twin-screw pulping has been tested in some segmented scenarios, further technical iterations are still needed because foreign matter control and system stability have not fully met commercial requirements.

Judging from the development dimension of pulping technology, due to the limitations of application scenarios, different types of slurry, and different pulping volumes, etc., equipment such as double planets, recirculating, and twin screws all have a certain market application space. It is difficult for a single product to completely replace other products, and there is more trend towards parallel development of multiple technology routes.

The proportion of various technology routes in China's lithium battery pulping system in 2021-2024 (%, revenue calibrator)

2) The concentration of the industry has further increased, leading enterprises have accelerated their volume, and the market share of leading equipment manufacturers continues to rise. The new production capacity of the lithium battery industry in 2024 was mainly dominated by leading manufacturers, driving their centralized procurement of high-quality pulping equipment and further strengthening the competitive barriers of leading equipment companies. Among them, Richie Intelligent has steadily ranked first in the lithium battery pulping system market, with a market share of more than 40% in 2024; Relying on its technical accumulation and market first-mover advantage in recyclable high-efficiency pulping systems, Shang Shui Smart's market share jumped to third place in the industry, and already ranked first in the recyclable high-efficiency pulping market segment.

Competitive pattern of China's lithium battery pulping system market in 2024 (%)

Judging from downstream application trends, the core development direction of lithium battery pulping systems is to help enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency on the premise of ensuring stable product quality. Specifically, the drive of pulping equipment to optimize the manufacturing cost of lithium batteries is mainly reflected in the following three aspects:

The first is to improve quality, increase efficiency and reduce costs. On the premise of improving production efficiency and reducing pulping time, ensure that the slurry still has uniform dispersibility within a specified period of time, maintain the stability of the slurry itself, do not layer, and reduce overall manufacturing costs.

The second is to support the stable preparation of high-solids slurries. High solid slurry not only helps to increase the energy density of the electrode sheet, but also effectively reduces energy consumption after drying, and is an important path to optimizing energy consumption.

The third is to promote the intelligent and unmanned upgrading of pulping systems. Through automated control and intelligent management, it is possible to reduce labor costs, improve production yield, improve overall system operation stability and production flexibility, and further help improve lithium battery manufacturing efficiency and quality assurance.