A vapor compression-adsorption thermal management system for electric vehicle: Concept and working fluid pairs

Thermal management system that usually based on vapor compression refrigeration system plays a significance role in electric vehicles. The system can be also based on the adsorption refrigeration, which can work for battery waste heat recovery. However, the adsorption refrigeration can hardly operate continuously. To combine the advantage of vapor compression and adsorption technology, a vapor compression-adsorption thermal management system (VCATMS) is proposed to provide battery waste heat recovery for cooling in summer and preheating in winter. Therefore, the cooling/preheating load reduces and electricity is saved. Schematic and detailed working modes are presented. The performance prediction method of the system is established, and the performances of different working fluid pairs are investigated. The results show that the activated carbon (AC)R410A working fluid pair has the best performance because of its good equilibrium adsorption characteristic. Electricity saving can reach 31.3 kJ on recovery mode in summer and 67 kJ on preheating mode in winter, respectively. As for temperature control, battery can be preheated at around 30 C under -30 C to 10 C ambient temperature without any electricity consumption. Besides, heat transfer performance of battery heat exchanger has an adverse effected on AC, which can be weaken by impregnating high thermal conductivity material.