Ultrafast Charging of Electric Cars with Innovative Battery Cooling

More and more electric cars can access fresh energy at fast-charging stations. With a charging power of several hundred kilowatts, such a station can replenish a battery to 80 percent within much less than a half hour, for example. The amount of energy flowing into the battery is two or three times higher than when the direction is reversed and energy is released, even under high-performance conditions – for example, when an electric sports car drives on the Daytona International Speedway. As a result, the battery heats up considerably during this supercharging. This can have a negative impact on its power consumption and service life, among other things, if the cooling system is not up to par. Conventional liquid cooling systems that chill entire battery cell systems from the outside are pushed to their limits. That is why automotive manufacturers are increasingly focusing their development on an innovative liquid cooling system that embeds the cells and their electrical arresters in the cooling medium (battery immersion cooling): The medium flows directly around the individual cells and effectively dissipates the released heat.

Analyzing the suitability of polymer materials for battery immersion cooling

The cooling media used in these kinds of systems have different chemical properties than those in other prevalent media to date. Their direct cell contact, for example, requires electrical insulation. Vehicle manufacturers are examining several partially innovative substance classes of cooling media with vastly different chemical properties.