Thermal management enabling longevities in (electric) Energy Transformative Technologies

Modern devices require energy transition technologies to power them. These include electric vehicles, photovoltaic panels, and high-speed microprocessors. However, our insatiable demand for speed and power means that energy storage devices are becoming larger with higher capacity. Such unregulated scale-up of devices, comes with increased risks of over-heating and fires. Therefore, ensuring system longevities requires further understanding of the effect of scale-up on heat dissipated. This will help us design systems to remove this heat, which enables longevities improving energy utilisation and minimising waste. Liquid-gas or solid-liquid phase-change thermal management offers an alternative to single-phase cooling/heating. This work builds on our previous RISE project (EC-H2020-RISE-ThermaSMART-778104) that upskilled over 50 students to obtain doctoral and masters degrees, and led to over 75 publications. ThermEnTrans will focus on understanding and developing the necessary multiscale frameworks to scale-up phase-change thermal management systems enabling immediate take-up by industry. This is via collaboration between 16 top universities from Europe, Asia, Africa, North America and South America, and 4 EU industries with expertise in precision experiments, micro-fabrication, theoretical modelling, numerical simulations, batteries and cooling systems design. Our collaboration will enable knowledge transfer, access to exclusive facilities (at MIT, Georgia Tech, York Toronto, TIFR Bangalore, Kyushu) and training of around 50 doctoral researchers in latest experimental, modelling, design and scale-up methods. Besides regular meetings, we will have annual workshops (Thessaloniki, London, Fukuoka and Atlanta) and training schools (Edinburgh, MIT, Warsaw, Bangalore and Pretoria). This will consolidate the EU’s position at the forefront of cutting-edge research in this crucial area and promote long-sustaining collaboration between academia and industry.