Why do we need ‘revolutionary’ cooling technology

Sneha Sachar, who spent her half -life in Delhi and now lives in California, is used to heat. But when she was growing up, her hometown now feels very hot.

Even car commuting is very uncomfortable in a few months, Ms. Sachar says, who works for a clean cooling colleague, a philanthropic initiative that focuses on better cooling.

Rising temperatures are Worse for external workers“This is really affecting people to continue to continue to earn their livelihood,” says Ms. Sachar.

She says that there are many low-technical ways to keep buildings cool, such as designing for air flow.

For external workers, even a 20 -minute break from heat and humidity, such as Well -designed cooling stationCan make a difference.

But beyond this, the active cooling will be rapidly significant as the temperature continues to increase due to climate change.

Morgan Stanley is predicting that the annual growth rate of the cooling market is already priced at $ 235BN (£ 180BN), Can be more than doubled by 2030,

Nevertheless, existing cooling devices have serious shortcomings. An ongoing cold -fluid that transfers in front and back in the gas to the gas, in a process that transfers heat.

It is common for them to leak from standard systems, damage both efficiency and potential health.

Typically there are usually refrigerant hydrophlorocarbons (HFC) used in cooling, a group of synthetic gases with high global warming capacity. HFCs are much more powerful than carbon dioxide.

So an option is to change refrigerant with more climate -friendly versions. But candidates with low global warming capacity also have problems.

For example, the propane is highly flammable. Ammonia is toxic. Carbon dioxide works on high pressures, requiring special equipment.

But under HFC in many places, alternative refrigerants will be important.

Ms. Sachar says that we still need refrigerant because for the cooling of the house, “A/CS as we know that she will remain a solution today, at least the next decade or for that”.

In the long term, some scientists are looking towards cooling devices that do not require liquid refrigerant.

Lindsay Rasmusen, which manages the construction and land-use projects in energy non-profit RMI, is these “revolutionary technologies”.

A major set of revolutionary cooling techniques is solid-state cooling. It uses solid material and some type of additional force to induce temperature changes. This additional force can be pressure, voltage, magnets or mechanical stress.

Ms. Rasmusen says that solid-state equipment can go beyond older reforms because “they not only eliminate those super-polluting refrigerants, but they can also provide better efficiency to the system”.

RMI has identified between 10 and 20 start-ups working on early versions of solid-state cooling devices.

One of the startups is the German company Magnotherm, which uses magnets. Some material changes to temperature when exposed to magnetic areas.

According to Timur Sirman, CEO and Kofounder of Magnotherm, “With our technology, it is naturally safe because it is not toxic, it is a metal, and we work on very few pressures.”

Magnetocheloric cooling has been considered for years, but its commercialization is relatively new. Magnotherm has built about 40 drinks coolers and about five refrigerators, so far a manual and in-house process.

Permanent magnets are the most expensive part of technology, reports of Mr. Sirman. “But it never breaks, so we can always reuse this cost-intensive component.”

The company is looking for alternative sources of magnetic fields, as well as optimizing materials, as they aim dramatically to increase the cooling capacity of their equipment.

Mr. Sirman believes that if you are responsible for refrigerant’s efficiency and health issues, such as leakage, can compete at the magnotherm product price. “We are not targeting customers who are only looking at the initial cost.”

He admits that now the company’s drink coolers are quite expensive. Their customers receive early adoption of new technologies.

Another technology under development is thermoelectric cooling.

This involves heat speed between the two sides of a device. With the application of electrical energy, the heat is transferred in the direction of the present.

A notable thermoelectric start-up is phononic, located in the US and has an additional manufacturing facility in Thailand.

Millions of phononic cooling devices are now in use, including data centers, supermarkets and other buildings.

Their cooling devices are made in the same way as computer chips, using semiconductor materials to move heat.

“Our chips are really thin, really small, but they really get cold. They consume small amounts of electricity to generate that coolness,” says Tony Ati, CEO of Phoneonic.

He says, to work in its best form, traditional fridge needs to be run all the time.

But thermoelectric devices can be easily discontinued. It helps to reduce costs, energy use and space requirements.

“We like to present coolness on demand where you need it,” Sri Ati says.

Another advantage is that thermoelectric cooling can be operated quietly. “This is because there are zero moving parts,” tells Ms. Rasmusen. “Material levels are getting heat due to reaction.”

In contrast, standard vapor compression systems contain pumps, condenser and expanders for refrigerants, which all produce noise.

A separate type of solid-state cooling is elastocelloric cooling. This converts temperature changes through mechanical stress into elastocelloric material, which may cool or warm with the application of stress.

Researchers from four European countries are collaborated on Smacool, an elastocalyt air conditioner that uses metal tubes made of specific metal alloys.

Currently, the Elastocalytic prototype has a much less cooling capacity than commercial air conditioning. And the maximum possible efficiency of Smacool is still less than traditional air conditioning, although the objective is Defeat the energy efficiency of A/C,

However, progress continues. A team led by researchers in Hong Kong Recently an A/C option has been made that achieved a cooling power of 1,284W – for the first time an Elastocelloric device crossed the 1,000 W mark. An innovation was using graphene nanofluid instead of distilled water to move heat.

Overall, Ms. Rasmusen says, solid-state tools are usually not as powerful as traditional vapor-merit air conditioning yet. But she expects to improve performance over time.

She also expects improvement in strength. Till now solid-state cooling has been mainly deployed in rich countries.

A major question, Ms. Rasmusen says, “Are these technologies above, where they can be cheap for those who need the most and where the biggest demand for cooling is coming?”