Thermal interface materials (TIMs) that are a crucial components in many electronic and energy storage devices, to transfer the heat generated, will see a ten-fold increase in the demand as required by the EV industry in 2031 compared to 2020.
According to the new report from IDTechEx, 'Thermal Interface Materials 2021-2031: Technologies, Markets and Opportunities,' the form and composition of TIMs vary significantly across applications and markets, and the demand grows despite many large material suppliers also manufacturing TIMs. Several industries are starting to emerge and/or focus more on thermal management and the requirement for TIMs, leading to new and extremely large potential markets.
It is without a doubt that Electric Vehicles (EVs) are the future of transportation. The EV market continued its growth in 2020 despite the impact of COVID-19 on the automotive industry as a whole. Not only is the EV market set to grow rapidly over the next ten years, but within this, there is a trend towards higher energy density, faster charging, longer lifetimes, and fire safety, all of which require effective thermal management and materials to support this. There is no consensus on battery design for EVs with various cell formats, thermal management strategies, and pack designs, each of which influences the TIM quantity and utilisation.
IDTechEx has extensive research into the design of EV batteries with a comprehensive model database covering the market shares of different cell formats, energy densities, and much more. Their new research report covers the demand for EV batteries across multiple vehicle segments (cars, buses, trucks, vans, two-wheelers, and more), automotive teardowns of TIM utilisation, analysis of trends and drivers towards specific TIM formats.
Many manufacturers, including Tesla, BYD, and VW, have stated their intentions to move away from having multiple modules in a pack and, instead, having cell-to-pack options. This removes or reduces the need for many materials in a battery pack, such as module housings, coolant lines, and module interconnects. While this results in several components being eliminated, TIMs are still a requirement as moving heat from the cells to the thermal management system will always be needed in one form or another, the report says.
IDTechEx expects that though the amount of TIM per vehicle may decrease, the overall emphasis on thermal management and the rapidly growing EV market will drive the demand for these materials, creating one of the largest potential markets.
The report also analyses current TIM applications in emerging markets and the key drivers and requirements in these areas, such as electric vehicle batteries, data centres, LEDs, 4G & 5G infrastructure, smartphones, tablets and laptops. In addition, 10-year granular market forecasts are given for each segment in terms of the application area and tonnage.
Courtesy: IDTechEx