A composite phase change material possessing antileakage performance for battery thermal management by constructing a nanoscale polymer framework

To solve the leakage issue of phase change material (PCM)-based battery thermal management (BTM) technology, a novel composite PCM (CPCM) is prepared herein by constructing a nanoscale resorcinol–formaldehyde (RF) framework to replace the classical micron-scale polymer framework. The three-dimensional (3D) nanoscale RF framework stacks into a 3D continuous mesoporous structure with a pore size of ∼ 30 nm and thereby results in intensive adsorbability toward polyethylene glycol, delivering an excellent antileakage property under long-term heat treatment up to 120 °C. The obtained CPCM possesses a thermal conductivity, latent heat and phase change temperature region of 1.26 W·m −1 ·K −1 , 103.13 J·g −1 and 35–60 °C, respectively. Consequently, superior temperature-control performances for the battery module can be obtained. Even at high discharge rates of 2 and 3C for 10 cycles, the maximum temperature and temperature difference can be maintained below 39.7 and 2.4 °C and 41.7 and 2.3 °C, respectively.