Electric vehicles (EVs) powered by lithium batteries, which are a promising type of green transportation, have attracted much attention in recent years. In this study, a thermoelectric generator (TEG) coupled with forced convection (F-C) was designed as an effective and feasible cooling system for a battery thermal management system. A comparison of natural convection cooling, F-C cooling, and TEG cooling reveals that the TEG is the best cooling system. Specifically, this system can decrease the temperature by 16.44% at the discharge rate of 3C. The coupled TEG and F-C cooling system can significantly control temperature at a relatively high discharge rate. This system not only can decrease the temperature of the battery module promptly but also can reduce the energy consumption compared with the two other TEG-based cooling systems. These results are expected to supply an effective basis of the design and optimization of battery thermal management systems to improve the reliability and safety performance of EVs.

Copper foam not only improves the stability of the PCM to avoid it flowing while absorbing heat, but also strengthens the capability for heat transfer for batteries.