Refrigerant loop

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Connected concepts

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Chiller

A heat exchanger in which evaporating refrigerant from the air-conditioning circuit cools the battery coolant below ambient temperature. A radiator can only bring coolant close to outside air temperature; the chiller is what lets a pack fast-charge on a 35 °C day. Stationary storage containers use packaged chiller units for the same job.

Heat exchanger

A device that moves heat between two fluids without mixing them, through thin metal walls with as much area as possible. In battery systems the main examples are the chiller, between refrigerant and coolant, and the radiator, between coolant and air; a cooling plate does the same job between cells and coolant.

Heat pump

A refrigerant circuit run to move heat from a colder place to a warmer one, delivering two to three units of heat per unit of electricity in mild winter conditions. In an electric vehicle it warms the cabin and battery from outside air and the waste heat of the motor and inverter, saving winter range compared with resistive heaters.

Radiator

A finned coolant-to-air heat exchanger, usually behind the vehicle’s front grille, through which a fan draws air. It can only cool the coolant to a few degrees above the outside air, so it handles the battery in mild weather and the chiller takes over when it is hot or the charging load is high.

Thermal management

Keeping cells in their comfortable range, roughly 15–35 °C, and within a few degrees of each other: liquid cooling plates, refrigerant plates or immersion for heat removal, and heaters or waste heat for warming before fast charging in the cold.

References & further reading

Further reading on this topic

These sources provide broader context; they are not presented as citations for every statement in this entry.

1. A General Energy Balance for Battery Systems

   Dawn Bernardi, Ellen Pawlikowski, John Newman · Journal of The Electrochemical Society · 1985

   Topic background · Battery energy balance and irreversible and reversible heat contributions. Reduced thermal models require explicit assumptions and current-sign conventions.

2. University Physics Volume 2, §1.6: Mechanisms of Heat Transfer

   OpenStax, Rice University

   Topic background · Conduction, convection, radiation and thermal resistance.