A collaborative R&D consortium led by M&I Materials and featuring Ricardo and Warwick Manufacturing Group, part of the University of Warwick has won The Engineer’s ‘Collaborate to Innovate’ Award 2020 in the automotive category. The Innovate UK research initiative is designed to explore and validate the benefits of direct immersion cooling of electric vehicle batteries. Funded by Innovate UK, the immersion cooling battery technology project, i-CoBat, uses a novel thermal management system for EV batteries using a novel, biodegradable dielectric fluid called MIVOLT, which allows for faster charging than conventional systems and a higher performance battery. The immersion cooling battery technology will make electric vehicles better performing, safer and cheaper, encouraging the accelerated adoption of electrified transport. The total cost of the battery and the impact on the vehicle can be reduced by using immersion cooling, thanks to the lower cost of the battery pack. Using immersion cooling also provides safety enhancements: it can mitigate and stop thermal runway and fire propagation. Read more