A novel MOF/RGO-based composite phase change material for battery thermal management

Abstract

Despite being an advanced material widely used in solar energy harvesting, indoor thermal environment of buildings and other fields, the phase change material (PCM) still suffers from the low thermal conductivity and high melt flow rate in practical applications in battery thermal management system. Against this background, a novel anti-leakage and thermally induced high thermal conductivity composite phase change material (CPCM) was proposed and prepared, and it was filled into a lithium-ion battery pack, and then the thermal management effects of the metal organic framework (MOF) based CPCM in the battery module under different conditions of harsh working environment were experimentally studied. The research results indicate that the new CPCM achieves better thermal management performance than natural convection under all test conditions. For example, under the worst test condition of 40 °C ambient temperature and 3 C discharge rate of battery module, the maximum temperature (Tmax) and maximum temperature difference (ΔTmax) in CPCM cooling module were 63.53 °C and 5.33 °C respectively, which are 23.47 °C and 6.67 °C lower than that of natural air cooling module. Interestingly, when the discharge rate was constant at 3 C, the ΔTmax in the discharge process of the battery module decreased with the increase of the test temperature, which was completely opposite to that of the natural air cooling module. It was helpful to improve the temperature consistency of the battery module. Finally, the novel CPCM has achieved better thermal management performance after comparison analysis.