Experimental investigation of a novel hybrid cooling method for lithium-ion batteries

In this paper, a proposed hybrid cooling concept is studied experimentally. The design is based on a simple air-cooling duct that utilizes enhanced water vaporization by convection to achieve an effective cooling. The construction of the proposed design is similar to a typical air-cooling battery pack with a duct with an inlet and an outlet, allowing a convective coolant (primary coolant) to flow through. A series of hydrophilic fiber channels containing a water coolant is exposed to a forced air coolant to extract the latent heat from the battery. From the test results, the hybrid cooling showed a much greater potential for battery packs with higher energy and power density. In particular, it indicates that the hybrid cooling was able to decrease the maximum average surface temperature from 55 degrees C in the no-cooling case to only 30.5 degrees C. This is a 73.5% reduction in temperature. However, the air-cooling and the water-cooling decreased the temperature to 44 degrees C and 38 degrees C which are only 32.3% and 50.0% reduction in temperature compared to the no-cooling case, respectively. The temperature uniformity was decreased from 13.5 degrees C for the no-cooling case to only 2.1 degrees C by the hybrid cooling method, meaning an 85.7% reduction in temperature non-uniformity.