A new NASA-funded technology for future space missions could charge an electric car in just five minutes on Earth, paving the way for greater adoption of such vehicles, according to the US space agency.
Purdue University researchers created the Flow Boiling and Condensation Experiment (FBCE) to allow two-phase fluid flow and heat transfer experiments to be conducted in the International Space Station’s long-duration microgravity environment (ISS).
Subcooled flow boiling technique
When compared to other approaches, the new “subcooled flow boiling” technique significantly improves heat transfer effectiveness and could be used to control the temperatures of future space systems.
According to the researchers, this technology could make owning an electric car more appealing on Earth.
Currently, charging times range from 20 minutes at a roadside station to hours using an at-home charging station.
Long charging times and charger location are both cited as major concerns among those considering purchasing an electric vehicle.
Charging systems must provide current at 1,400 amperes
To reduce charging time for electric vehicles to five minutes, an industry goal, charging systems must provide current at 1,400 amperes. Currently, advanced chargers can only deliver currents of up to 520 amperes, and most consumer chargers can only deliver currents of less than 150 amperes.
However, charging systems with 1,400 amps will generate significantly more heat than current systems and will necessitate improved temperature control methods.
The team recently applied the technique learned from the NASA FBCE experiments to the charging process of electric vehicles.
This new technology pumps dielectric (non-electrically conducting) liquid coolant through the charging cable, capturing the heat generated by the current-carrying conductor.
According to the researchers, subcooled flow boiling allows them to deliver 4.6 times the current of the fastest available electric vehicle chargers on the market today by removing up to 24.22 kilowatts of heat.
The charging cable can provide 2,400 amperes, which is far beyond the 1,400 amperes required to reduce time required to charge an electric car to five minutes, they said.
“Application of this new technology resulted in unprecedented reduction of the time required to charge a vehicle and may remove one of the key barriers to worldwide adoption of electric vehicles,” the researchers added.
