Immersion cooling battery technology wins The Engineer's Collaborate to Innovate Automotive Award

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.

For battery electric vehicles, the better performance will be seen during charging at ultra-fast charging rates, meaning that (cell allowing) a battery pack can be recharged in less than eight minutes from 10% to 80% state of charge.

Because the technology has been designed to be lightweight, it can easily be used in the aerospace industry. Indeed, the Ricardo proprietary design approach of partial immersion cooling is currently being used in the propulsion module for the next generation electric aircraft Ricardo is helping to develop with consortium partners for the InCEPTion project

Richard Gordon, Head of R&D for Ricardo said: “With our consortium partners M&I Materials Limited and Warwick Manufacturing Group at the University of Warwick, we are absolutely delighted to have won The Engineer’s Collaborate to Innovate award for the automotive category for our immersion cooling battery technology. We are extremely grateful to Innovate UK and the Faraday Institute who co-funded this collaborative research.

This award highlights the thought leadership Ricardo has in the development of energy storage solutions, and demonstrates to global OEMs Ricardo’s ability to invent and forge new ground in developing sustainable solutions which will be game-changing for global electrified transport.”

The win is highly motivating for all our employees and excellent partners who worked very hard to bid for and deliver this project successfully and will spur us on to look to achieve even more in the electrification space.

“We want our R&D output to make a difference. We provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading edge and innovative cross sector sustainable products and solutions, helping our global customers increase efficiencies, achieve growth and create a clear and safer future. Our mission is clear – to create a world fit for the future, and with this award, we are proud to be making a positive step towards achieving that ambition.”

Read more about the innovative immersion cooling battery technology: C2I 2020 Automotive winner: Playing it cool | The Engineer The Engineer.

Get an insight into Ricardo's role in the collaborative project in this Q&A: Making EVs better performing, safer and cheaper

Find out more about the Collaborate to Innovate Awards: Welcome to Collaborate to Innovate Week | The Engineer The Engineer.