Thermal management for electric vehicle batteries using mini/micro-channels: A critical review of strategies, challenges, and future prospects

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are vital and one of the most crucial components of modern electric vehicles. Maintaining an appropriate temperature range for LIBs is important. Accordingly, battery thermal management systems (BTMSs) play a significant role in ensuring the optimal performance of LIBs. Over the course of the last several years, a significant number of academics have researched the use of mini- and micro-channels in BTMSs in combination with liquid cooling systems. This is due to the high thermal performance of these channels. Also, there are numerous configurations of mini/micro-channels, that are investigated with various related parameters. Moreover, different types of cooling media have also been employed in these research studies. The main aim of their research work is to control and maintain the temperature of LIBs within a specific operating range, considering both the maximum temperature and temperature difference between LIB cells. Recently, dendritic channels have been used in BTMSs since these channels allow low flow resistance, and reduce the energy consumption. These dendritic channels include tree-like, leaf-vein-like, honeycomb-like, spider-web-like, and blood-vessel-type structures, that are inspired from nature. In view of this, the proposed paper presents a comprehensive review of BTMSs that employ mini/micro and dendritic channels for cooling electric vehicle batteries.