A comprehensive review of battery thermal management systems for electric vehicles

Abstract

Trying to prevent and mitigate carbon emissions and air pollution is one of the biggest challenges for the technological development of the automobile industry. In addition, the automobile industry has stepped up research and field applications of electric vehicles as the European Union encourages the restriction of the use of conventional fuel-powered vehicles such as diesel and gasoline vehicles. However, the cycle life, environmental adaptability, driving range, and charging time of the battery currently used in electric vehicles are far beyond comparison with internal combustion engines. Therefore, studies have focused on batteries, and battery thermal management systems (BTMSs) have been developed. Battery performance is highly dependent on temperature and the purpose of an effective BTMS is to ensure that the battery pack operates within an appropriate temperature range. Ensuring that the battery operates in the appropriate temperature range is vital for both efficiency and safety. To determine the best convenient BTMS for several types of battery packs attached to many factors such as volumetric constraints, installation costs, and working efficiency. The maximum temperature rise and the maximum temperature difference are the basic parameters to analyze the efficiency of the BTMS. Most of the research about thermal management has focused on especially air cooling, liquid cooling, and phase change material (PCM) cooling methods. In this study, different BTMSs (air cooling, liquid cooling, PCM cooling, etc.) were examined and their advantages and disadvantages were compared, usage restrictions in today's technology, requirements, and studies on this subject were reported.