MATERIALS | HIGH TEMPERATURE PLASTICS
Spurring development in EV batteries
Giacomo Parisi, marketing director for advanced mobility solutions at DuPont Mobility & Materials, says the company’s development work is steered by its “battery roadmap,” which tracks near-term needs of the industry as well as the challenges related to technologies expected to emerge in the next 5-10 years. Consumer hesitation to pur- chase EVs often is due to con- cerns about vehicle range and the time required to re-charge a battery. To boost the range and reduce the charging times of battery-powered vehicles, energy density in battery cells will have to increase. Increased density will help speed charging of fully electric and hybrid vehicles (collectively called xEVs), increase safety, and improve performance in extreme cold or hot weather. OEMs have a handful of options to
keep high voltage batteries cool for xEVs. These options all depend on thermoplastics and thermoplastic elastomers with a careful balance of thermal and dimensional properties.
Left: DuPont has built its own battery module to help new development at customers
IMAGE: DUPONT
To keep xEV batteries cool, four main methods are considered: passive cooling, air-forced cooling, indirect cooling with water/glycol or refriger- ant, or direct immersion cooling. DuPont is supporting customers in their developments for all of these but sees itself as especially well posi- tioned for the latter two. Parisi says both require applications such as cooling plates, electric driven pumps, and other applications for which DuPont has optimised materials
types (see also Injection World September 2020). Genestar GP2300S can reach a CTI significantly higher than 600V (IEC 60112/UL 746 standard). In-house tests showed it performed better in this regard than rival PPAs such as PA6T and PA4T. Kuraray says: “PA9T grades have an excellent
water repellence combined with a high thermal stability compared to short-chain PPAs. Moreover, less benzene rings are present in the main molecu- lar chain of PA9T compared to other short-chain PPAs. This results in less conductive graphite structures to be formed during the CTI testing.” Kuraray has a plant in Thailand due to start up
late next year producing C9 diamine monomer as well as PA9T polymer. This will be its third PA9T polymer plant (the other two are in Japan and Thailand), bringing total capacity to 26,000 tpa. “From a Business Continuity Plan point of view, it is very important for us to have multiple production sites separately for ensuring supply reliability,” a representative says.
16 INJECTION WORLD | September 2021
across its portfolio. Company experts believe direct immersion cooling may offer the most upside, but they recognise that it also creates new challenges, including the need to re-design the cooling system and ensure it does not leak any of the dielectric fluids. Direct immersion cooling also will place higher demands on the materials in contact with those new EV fluids.
But the advantages – including faster charging, more precise tem- perature control, and improved cell lifetime – are very attractive to OEMs and could allay consumer concerns about xEVs’ range and charging time requirements. At the Fakuma exhibi- tion in Germany this October, DuPont will launch new grades of Electrically Friendly (EF) materials that it says offer the durability necessary to support manufacturers’ ongoing developments.
Independent compounder Lati recently launched compounds based on PA9T, branded Laramid T. It says it is aiming at strategic industrial sectors, notably connectivity and e-mobility, where resistance to high temperatures are required alongside resistance to prolonged stress and aggressive environments. The compounds offer a reliable mechanical performance up to a continuous use temperature of 150°C, which Luca Posca, Group Technical Assistance & Marketing Director, says is a very critical threshold for many fields. “This feature allows PA9T to compete with other PPAs and PPS as well in automotive, appliance, energy manage- ment, electronic and electrical devices,” he says. “Laramid T is an already fully developed group of materials, featuring glass and carbon fibre rein- forced grades for structural applications, thermally and electrically conductive as well as self-lubricant compounds. Halogen- and red phosphorous-free flame retardants are already available in both
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