Samsung SDI Joins Lithium-Sulfur and Sodium-Ion Battery Race... Two-Track Strategy for All-Solid-State Batteries

Executive Vice President Juyong Rak Delivers Keynote Speech at InterBattery 2026

Juyong Rak, Head of Research at Samsung SDI, is delivering the keynote speech at InterBattery 2026 The Battery Conference held on the 11th. Photo by Heejong Kang

Following LG Energy Solution, Samsung SDI has also joined the race to develop lithium-sulfur batteries. For all-solid-state batteries, Samsung SDI plans to deploy prismatic cells in the electric vehicle market, while targeting the urban air mobility (UAM) and humanoid robot markets with pouch-type cells.

Juyong Rak, Head of Research (Executive Vice President) at Samsung SDI, participated as a keynote speaker at the InterBattery 2026 The Battery Conference held at COEX in Seoul on March 11, and explained, "We aim to become pioneers in the fields of energy storage systems (ESS), robots, and UAM batteries," outlining the company's development direction.

Executive Vice President Joo stated, "We will initially respond to the ESS market with prismatic LFP batteries and later expand to sodium-ion batteries (SIB)," adding, "For robots, we plan to use all-solid-state batteries, while for UAM, we are targeting lithium-sulfur or lithium-metal batteries."

Samsung SDI's strategy in the ESS market is to maximize competitiveness with prismatic batteries. Executive Vice President Joo explained, "We have filed more than 1,200 patents related to prismatic batteries in the United States alone, which is far more than our competitors in China, Japan, or Korea." He added, "Prismatic LFP batteries will become the mainstream in ESS," and announced plans to launch the Samsung Battery Box (SBB) 2.0, which features enhanced fire safety.

Regarding all-solid-state batteries, he also expressed confidence, saying, "We have filed more than 1,100 patents." Samsung SDI has applied silver-carbon-based anode-free technology to its all-solid-state batteries. The company plans to complete verification by the second half of this year and begin mass production in 2027.

Executive Vice President Joo stated, "We are also developing lithium-sulfur batteries based on anode-free and solid electrolyte technologies," and emphasized that "since these batteries can be made lighter, we have UAM in mind as the primary application."

At this year's 'InterBattery 2026,' Samsung SDI simultaneously unveiled the new names for its prismatic and all-solid-state battery technologies: 'PrismStack' and 'SolidStack.'

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.