Melamine foam-based shape-stable phase change composites enhanced by aluminum nitride for thermal management of lithium-ion batteries

Phase change material (PCM) based passive cooling techniques are attractive candidates for thermal management of lithium-ion batteries due to the merits of low energy consumption and low cost. However, the commonly used solid-liquid PCMs suffer from leakage and poor thermal conductivity, limiting their wide applications. Herein, we report a novel composite PCM (CPCM) with melamine foam (MF) as the supporting matric, lauric acid as the PCM, and aluminum nitride (AlN) as the thermal conductivity enhancer. The CPCM presents a good anti-leakage feature, and AlN increases the thermal conductivity of the CPCM by 54.17% with a mass fraction of 15%. As a result, the CPCM with 15% AlN shows the best thermal management performance that the maximum battery surface temperature and the temperature difference can be decreased by 24.96% and 83.97% at a 3 C discharging rate compared to those without CPCM. Further, the maximum battery surface temperature is within 47.74 °C, and the temperature difference is no more than 0.34 °C under the cycling discharge-charge tests. The findings of the present work open up new opportunities to develop high-performance and reliable CPCMs for the thermal control of lithium-ion batteries, especially at high discharging rates.