According to the US space agency, a new NASA-funded technology for upcoming space missions may charge an electric car in just five minutes on Earth, opening the door for a greater uptake of such vehicles.
The Flow Boiling and Condensation Experiment (FBCE), created by Purdue University researchers in the US, enables two-phase fluid flow and heat transfer experiments to be carried out in the long-duration microgravity environment on the International Space Station (ISS).
In comparison to other methods, the novel "subcooled flow boiling" technology significantly increases the efficiency of heat transmission and might be utilized to regulate the temperatures of future space systems.
Earth-based uses for this technology include making owning an electric automobile more desirable, according to the researchers.
Currently, charging periods range greatly, from 20 minutes at a station next to a road to hours at a home charger.
People who are thinking about owning an electric vehicle have expressed big concerns about long charging periods and outlet locations.
It will be necessary for charging systems to deliver current at 1,400A in order to meet the industry target of cutting the charging time for electric vehicles to five minutes.
Modern chargers can only produce currents of up to 520A, while the majority of consumer chargers support currents of no more than 150A.
But 1,400A charging systems will produce a lot more heat than present systems do, necessitating more sophisticated temperature management techniques.
Recently, the researchers used the method discovered through the NASA FBCE tests to improve the charging of electric vehicles.
By pumping dielectric liquid coolant through the charging cable, which is electrically nonconductive, this novel technology is able to absorb the heat produced by the conductor that carries the current.
The team explained that by removing up to 24.22kWs of heat, subcooled flow boiling enables them to supply 4.6 times the current of the fastest electric vehicle chargers currently on the market.
According to them, the charging cable has a capacity of 2,400A, which is much higher than the 1,400A needed to cut the time needed to charge an electric automobile to five minutes.
The researchers continued, "Applying this new technology resulted in an unparalleled reduction of the time necessary to charge a vehicle and may remove one of the major obstacles to the widespread adoption of electric vehicles."
