Electric Ship Batteries Promise Compact, Cooler Power

(spectrum.ieee.org)

17 points | by rbanffy 1 hour ago

1 comments

  • dmtroyer 21 minutes ago
    I assumed they would use sea water for cooling but that doesn't seem to be the case? Maybe the battery coolant is cooled using some sort of sea water heat exchanger?
    • Xylakant 10 minutes ago
      You really don't want to cool anything with sea water directly. It's corrosive due to the salt and contains all kinds of fun things from flotsam to critters, some of which might make a home in your cooling loop. in this case, additionally, sea water is conductive and that's not acceptable in a battery.

      However, feeding the coolant through some sort of heat exchange with the sea water is very likely something they do.

    • zdragnar 11 minutes ago
      A closed loop is probably easier to maintain compared to pumping caustic saltwater and all the things in it near batteries.
    • pjc50 9 minutes ago
      The immersion fluid has to be non conductive and non corrosive. Hence the choice of oil (flammable) or weird fluorocarbons.