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Self-Refrigerating Plastic Sheets Could Make Ultimate Heatsink
Posted by John Mahoney at 3:20 AM on August 13, 2008
Researchers at Penn State have cooked up a new plastic that can be cooled by simply running a current through it. It uses the electrocaloric effect to rearrange its individual atoms when charged, allowing for heat to more easily come and go. By wrapping up a chip in the stuff and zapping it with current, researchers hope they've found a way to make more efficient heatsinks for laptops and other gear with small, hot enclosures. Right now the process requires too much voltage to be feasible (120v, rather than the couple of volts your laptop battery could give it), but manufacturing improvements could make it ready for prime time, and Intel seems interested.
Says Rajiv Mongia, an Intel engineer:
"The fact that they've been able to develop a polymer-type material that can be used in a relatively thin film is worth a second look [compared with previous ceramic heatsinks that worked the same way]," Mongia says. "Also, it's working in a temperature range that is of interest to us."
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strider_mt2k
Posted 3:56 AM 13/8/08
@Navin R Johnson: Perhaps the same reason you don't see more Peltier Junction-based coolers.
You're really just moving heat around, but you make more doing it, all in a jolly spiral that ends up in a blown fuse and a severe scolding from my wife, er...I mean...potential operational difficulties.
heh
strider_mt2k
Navin R Johnson
Posted 3:48 AM 13/8/08
Generating high voltage isn't a problem in a laptop. Most current LCD backlights (non-LED) require voltages in the 500+ range to operate.
It's more likely power that's the problem. Due to that little thing called The Law of Conservation of Energy, when you generate high voltage it's at a low amperage.
P = V * I
Navin R Johnson
lilaliendog
Posted 3:25 AM 13/8/08
so wait they are gonna put a huge roll of shrink wrap in your case, charge it when it gets hot and it will roll like the lens tape on nascar race cars?
lilaliendog
streamingeagle
Posted 4:25 AM 13/8/08
Love your work Navin... especially the Optigrab.
There is no such thing as amperage. Voltage is a real term... but "amps" is a unit of "current".
The law of conservation of energy says that the sum of all energies in a system is zero. For instance, Chemical Energy (battery) + Mechanical Energy (running disk drive) + Light Energy (display) + Heat = 0. In other words, energy is not created... it is simply transferred from one form (chemical energy in the battery) to other forms (it all ends up as heat).
P = V * I is simply the formula for calculating power in an electrical circuit (Power = voltage times current). For a given power requirement, increasing the voltage decreases the current. This isn't necessarily a problem. Increased voltage requires better electrical insulation, but has the benefit of decreasing the size of the wires or width of the traces on the circuit board. It's not a huge problem to step up voltages from 12 or 14 volts to 120 volts. But it isn't ideal either... it would be difficult to put 120 volts on a circuit board, or integrate the cooling into the chip.
The right application for the law of conservation of energy => in an active cooling system, every watt of power used to run the cooling system turns into heat that must be transferred to the air outside the computer. So the real question isn't the voltage required for this system... it's the power requirement, versus the cooling capacity. I wouldn't bet against this technology.
streamingeagle
reamon
Posted 7:55 AM 13/8/08
@streamingeagle: "There is no such thing as amperage."
You sure?
[www.wisegeek.com]
[www.ndt-ed.org]
[www.merriam-webster.com]
reamon
Collins1
Posted 8:21 AM 13/8/08
Anyone else have their avatar pic appear as the pic for this article on the front page?
I did! Yay! Why?!
Collins1
icegoat
Posted 8:12 AM 13/8/08
@icegoat: geddit?
icegoat
icegoat
Posted 8:10 AM 13/8/08
This is the coolest thing I have read about in a while.
icegoat
Valicious
Posted 1:37 PM 13/8/08
@Collins1: collectibles.
Valicious
Valicious
Posted 1:37 PM 13/8/08
I was thinking how it could chill drinks in the store providing current in a container while door closed.
Valicious
sexyrobot
Posted 5:50 PM 13/8/08
why not just remove all the electrics that get all hot and bothered from the computer and put them to work in a water heater or something? all you really need is the keyboard and the screen, right?
sexyrobot
Posted 3:40 AM 13/8/08
thats awsome