Research Progress of Phase Change Storage Material on Power Battery Thermal Management

With the rapid development of electric vehicles (EVs), thermal safety issues have become increasingly prominent. In the charging and discharging process, a proper battery thermal management system (BTMS) can control the temperature of the power battery pack, which is essential to ensure the performance and safety of EVs. Among various cooling technologies, phase change material (PCM) cooling is widely used in BTMS due to its excellent characteristics, such as simple structure, good cooling effect, and no extra energy consumption. Herein, the research progress of PCM on BTMS is reviewed, including the overview of PCMs, the studies of single PCM-based BTMS, and the development of hybrid PCM-based BTMS. The results have found that the cooling performance of PCM-based BTMS is determined by excellent PCM properties and suitable BTMS structure. In addition, the fin-enhanced structure and active phase change slurry (PCS) can effectively improve the reliability and flexibility of BTMS applications. The hybrid BTMS consisting of PCM and other cooling technology can promote the heat dissipation of PCM, which helps to solve PCM heat saturation and further reduce the battery temperature. Finally, insufficient studies in current research are pointed out, and a future development direction is also reported.