Development and investigation of form-stable and cyclable decanoic acid-based composite phase change materials for efficient battery thermal management

Abstract

Phase change material as the core of latent heat energy storage technology, suffers from the “solid-liquid phase change” problem. In this study, “solid-solid” composite phase change materials (CPCMs) have been developed using olefin block copolymers (OBC) and decanoic acid. With ≥30 wt% OBC, the physical shapes of the developed CPCMs nearly remain unchanged after 100 times of thermal cycling, without significant changes in the phase change properties. The addition of graphite powder leads to a significant enhancement in thermal conductivity of up to 18 times, which leads to excellent control of battery maximum temperature and temperature uniformity. In the battery thermal management test, the developed CPCM achieves a maximum of 3 °C and 10.5 °C reductions in maximum temperature difference and peak temperature, respectively. The CPCMs also prolong the thermal preservation time by 3 times. In the pack level test, the use of CPCM plates leads to a maximum temperature reduction of 15 °C on the commercial battery pack under 55 °C extreme working temperature.