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TechWaTch
Thermal Management: The Rise of Multifunctional Materials By Dr. James Edmondson, Senior Technology Analyst, IDTechEx
emerging technologies are driv- ing material innovation. Elec- tronics in markets from personal devices to cars are seeing in- creased integration, densifica- tion, and hence an increased fo- cus on thermal management. As these components have less and less free space to utilize, the use of materials that provide more than one function is on the rise.
T
EV Battery Evolution The electric vehicle (EV) mar-
ket has continued its trend toward higher energy-density battery de-
hermal management is critical in several indus- tries, and the trends in
signs. While the average market energy density has decreased slightly since 2020 due to the resurgence of LFP batteries, the percentage of the battery that is taken up by the cells has been in- creasing, somewhat mitigating the hit from adopting the lower energy density cell chemistry. The increasing share of LFP
has decreased average cell ener- gy density, but the efficiency of packaging has continued to in- crease rapidly, helping offset this at a pack level. The trend of increasing
packing efficiency is partly due to incremental improvements but also greater adoption of cell-
to-pack and cell-to-body designs that have been seen in 2022. BYD’s blade battery has seen a greatly increased deployment in 2022, with BYD’s market share in China’s EV market reaching approximately 25% in the first half of 2022. This cell-to-pack design has
each prismatic cell take up the entire width of the pack. In 2022, Tesla also deployed its first vehi- cles using the fabled 4680 bat- tery cells and a structural pack design where the seats are at- tached directly to the lid of the battery. These design changes greatly improve energy density by removing ancillary materials that do not directly contribute to the battery’s operation. Despite the removal and re-
duction of materials in EV bat- teries, there are several materi- als that will always be required in an EV battery design for it to function optimally. These in- clude the thermal management strategy (cold plates, coolants, etc.) and, critically, in 2022, fire protection materials. Similar to 2021, EV fires have been promi- nent in news outlets but, now more than ever, a driver for ma- terial innovation.
TIMs in EV Batteries Thermal interface materials
(TIMs) are a critical component in the vast majority of modern EV battery designs. These help to dissipate heat from the cells towards the cooling structure (module housings, cooling, chan- nels/cold plates). The most com- mon applications currently have the battery cells sit on a gap-fill- ing TIM inside a module; several of these modules then sit on an- other gap-filling TIM to contact the liquid-cooled cold plate be- low. This approach has changed in some more recent designs, es- pecially cell-to-pack designs. The concept is to have the
DL Technology has been the leader in micro dispensing technology for over 15 years. For more
www.dltechnology.com 216 River Street, Haverhill, MA 01832 • P: 978.374.6451 • F: 978.372.4889 •
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cells contact the cold plate directly through a single TIM, reducing the number of interfaces and hence improving heat transfer. Due to less interfaces, the thermal conductivity of the TIM can be re- duced, and less TIM is required. Initially, this can reduce the weight and cost of the TIM and make for easier dispensing. How- ever, with the removal of module housings (or similar structures),
the TIM must now provide a structural component. Therefore, this is a great opportunity for thermally conductive adhesives.
5G and ADAS Several industries are mov-
ing towards higher frequency. Two key examples of this are 5G telecommunications for higher data transfer rates and automo- tive radar to enable higher reso- lution detection. At higher fre- quencies, electromagnetic inter- ference (EMI) shielding becomes more challenging with tradition- al methods. 5G rollout is well underway, the highest
but frequency,
mmWave (>24 GHz) infrastruc- ture, is still in its infancy. The vast majority of 5G infrastruc- ture is still in the lower frequen- cy bands below 6 GHz. However, IDTechEx predicts a 70-fold in- crease in mmWave small cell rollout by 2033. mmWave infra- structure presents a host of chal- lenges around signal propaga- tion, but also, the higher fre- quency leads to smaller, more densely packed antennas where both thermal management and EMI shielding are a challenge. Automotive radar is a key
component of advanced driver-as- sistance systems (ADAS) and an enabling technology for future au- tonomous vehicles. Previous auto- motive radar units were largely utilizing 24 GHz. Since then, the market has largely transitioned to >77 GHz. This helps increase the resolution but also creates a more compact antenna and hence radar unit. These higher-frequency ra -
dars will be the dominant technol- ogy in the future. IDTechEx esti- mates that over 90% of automo- tive radar will be in the 77 GHz region by 2030. In these designs, the compact nature of the device with higher frequency signals once again provides challenges to both thermal management and EMI shielding. Several material companies have presented a solu- tion to these problems, where a TIM is provided that also has EMI
shielding properties. Contact: IDTechEx, One
Boston Place, Suite 2600, Boston, MA 02108 % 617-577-7890 fax: 617-577-7810 E-mail:
info@idtechex.com Web:
www.idtechex.com r
April/May 2023
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