Efficient Battery Thermal Management Technology
Efficient battery thermal management technology is crucial to the safe operation, long cycle life and overall cost reduction of lithium-ion batteries, and is of great significance to promote the large-scale application of lithium-ion batteries. This review discusses several mainstream battery thermal management technologies in detail, namely air cooling, liquid cooling, novel phase change material cooling and thermoelectric cooling technologies.
The air cooling technology has a simple structure, but it is difficult to ensure the consistency of the battery core temperature in the battery pack. It is not suitable for the cooling of large lithium-ion battery packs, and is more used in small flying electric equipment and low-end models. The cooling effect of the cooling plate liquid cooling technology is better, but there is a risk of coolant leakage and the temperature uniformity needs to be further improved. Immersion liquid cooling technology has remarkable cooling and uniform temperature effects, but it is expensive, and may be more applied to energy storage power stations with high cooling requirements in the future. For most lithium-ion electric vehicles, lower-cost Cooling plate liquid cooling technology is a better choice.
Air cooling is generally divided into two types: natural cooling and forced cooling. Air flow is used to take away the heat generated by the battery and then cool the battery. It has the advantages of simple structure, low cost, and no pollution.
Natural cooling is a passive cooling method, which often only needs to design heat dissipation air ducts, and is widely used in early lithium-ion electric vehicles.
Liquid cooling is a cooling technology that uses liquid as the cooling medium and uses the phase change or flow of the cooling liquid to exchange heat with the heat-generating components of the battery system. It has the advantages of fast heat dissipation and high cooling efficiency. Generally, it is divided into direct liquid cooling and indirect liquid cooling. The direct liquid cooling coolant is in direct contact with the heating device, such as the representative immersion liquid cooling. The cooling liquid of indirect liquid cooling does not directly contact the heat-generating device, but flows in specific components to indirectly cool the battery, such as cooling plate liquid cooling.
