Visteon, a global automotive supplier, has introduced thermal management products for batteries in new electric and hybrid vehicles.
Maintenance of batteries within specific temperature ranges extends battery life, leading to better fuel economy. Many automakers are developing electric and hybrid vehicles and Visteon is encouraging the effort by developing cost-effective, advanced and efficient products for improving battery life in vehicles.
Visteon has developed battery chillers, battery contact heat exchangers and other such devices. It has introduced a system with an architecture that uses contact heat exchangers that are based on coolants and a second system featuring a design that uses battery cooling and heating based on refrigerants. The vehicle’s air conditioning system and the battery contact heat exchanger are connected and this allows the battery to reject the heat into the refrigerant or coolant.
The first system that is based on coolants utilizes a battery cooling and heating architecture. The heat generated in the vehicle’s lithium-ion batteries are transferred to the coolant system. When the coolant temperature has to be decreased,s the air conditioning system is used. Visteon's coolant-to-refrigerant battery chiller is used for cooling. It reuses the current heat exchanger technology. The Visteon heaters that are in the coolant are switched on when the battery has to be heated.
Visteon has developed other green technologies including a "leak free" metal seal fitting, a heat pump system and electric compressors.
Source: http://www.visteon.com