Review on phase change materials based battery thermal management technology

Due to environmental concerns and needs for energy saving, electric vehicles will become an important area of future development of automotive industry. Recent years have seen rapid development of battery thermal management technologies, which play a crucial role in the battery performance and life-span. Battery thermal management technologies can be classified into three categories of air-cooling, liquid-cooling and phase change materials (PCM) based technologies. This paper provides a review of recent developments in battery thermal management using PCM. Particular focus is on the use of PCM containing highly thermally conductive particles and PCM embedded in metal foams.