Superhydrophobic Microchannel Heat Exchanger for Electric Vehicle Heat Pump Performance Enhancement

Battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs) have emerged as an environmentally friendly and efficient alternative to traditional internal combustion engine vehicles, while their single-charge driving distances under cold conditions are significantly limited due to the high energy consumption of their heating systems. Heat pumps can provide an effective heating solution for EVs, but their coefficient of performance (COP) is hampered by heat transfer deterioration due to frost accumulation. This study proposes a solution to this issue by introducing a microchannel heat exchanger (MHE) with superhydrophobic surface treatment (SHST) as a heat pump evaporator. A computational fluid dynamics MHE model and a dynamic heat pump model are developed and rigorously validated to examine the detrimental impact of frost accumulation on heat transfer, airflow resistance, and heat pump performance. When the frost layer thickness is 0.8 mm at a given air-side velocity of 1.0 m/s, the air-side heat transfer coefficient can be reduced by about 75%, and the air-side pressure drop sharply increases by 28.4 times. As frost thickness increases from 0 to 0.8 mm, the heating capacity drops from 3.97 to 1.82 kW, and the system COP declines from 3.17 to 2.30. Experimental results show that the frost thickness of the MHE with SHST reaches approximately 0.4 mm after 30 min, compared to that of 0.8 mm of the MHE without SHST, illustrating the defrosting capability of the superhydrophobic coating. The study concludes by comparing the performance of various heating methods in EVs to highlight the advantages of SHST technology. As compared to traditional heat pumps, the heating power consumption of the proposed system is reduced by 48.7% due to the defrosting effect of the SHST. Moreover, the single-charge driving distance is extended to 327.27 km, an improvement of 8.99% over the heat pump without SHST. © 2023 by the authors.