TY - JOUR

T1 - Graphene or h-BN paraffin composite structures for the thermal management of Li-ion batteries

T2 - A multiscale investigation

AU - Mortazavi, Bohayra

AU - Yang, Hongliu

AU - Mohebbi, Farzad

AU - Cuniberti, Gianaurelio

AU - Rabczuk, Timon

N1 - Funding information: BM, FM and TR greatly acknowledge the financial support by European Research Council for COMBAT project (Grant number 615132). The authors specially thank Andreas Hess, Quirina Roode-Gutzmer and Manfered Bobeth at TU-Dresden for fruitful discussions. HY and GC acknowledge the support by the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Cluster of Excellence “Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden'' (cfAED), the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH) at TU-Dresden for computational resources and the support by Dresden Center for Computational Materials Science (DCCMS).

PY - 2017/9/15

Y1 - 2017/9/15

N2 - The reliability and safety of lithium-ion batteries can be affected by overheating issues. Phase change materials like paraffin due to their large heat capacities are among the best solutions for the thermal management of batteries. In this investigation, multiscale modelling techniques were developed to explore the efficiency in the thermal management of rechargeable batteries through employing the paraffin composite structures. A combined atomistic-continuum multiscale modelling was conducted to evaluate the thermal conductivity of paraffin reinforced with graphene or hexagonal boron-nitride nanosheet additives. In addition, heat generation during a battery service was simulated using the Newman's electrochemical model. Finally, three-dimensional heat transfer models were constructed to investigate the effectiveness of various paraffin composite structures in the thermal management of a battery system. Interestingly, it was found that the thermal conductivity of paraffin nanocomposites can be enhanced by several times but that does not yield significant improvement in the batteries thermal management over the pure paraffin. The acquired findings can be useful not only for the modelling of nanocomposites but more importantly for the improvement of phase change materials design to enhance the thermal management of rechargeable batteries and other electronic devices.

AB - The reliability and safety of lithium-ion batteries can be affected by overheating issues. Phase change materials like paraffin due to their large heat capacities are among the best solutions for the thermal management of batteries. In this investigation, multiscale modelling techniques were developed to explore the efficiency in the thermal management of rechargeable batteries through employing the paraffin composite structures. A combined atomistic-continuum multiscale modelling was conducted to evaluate the thermal conductivity of paraffin reinforced with graphene or hexagonal boron-nitride nanosheet additives. In addition, heat generation during a battery service was simulated using the Newman's electrochemical model. Finally, three-dimensional heat transfer models were constructed to investigate the effectiveness of various paraffin composite structures in the thermal management of a battery system. Interestingly, it was found that the thermal conductivity of paraffin nanocomposites can be enhanced by several times but that does not yield significant improvement in the batteries thermal management over the pure paraffin. The acquired findings can be useful not only for the modelling of nanocomposites but more importantly for the improvement of phase change materials design to enhance the thermal management of rechargeable batteries and other electronic devices.

KW - Lithium-ion batteries

KW - Multiscale modelling

KW - Paraffin composite

KW - Polymer nanocomposites

KW - Thermal management

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85020026313&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.05.175

DO - 10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.05.175

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85020026313

VL - 202

SP - 323

EP - 334

JO - Applied energy

JF - Applied energy

SN - 0306-2619

ER -