Researchers have built the first refrigerant-free system to reach sub-zero temperatures, a breakthrough that could reduce food waste and greenhouse gas emissions.

Imaging if this technology could cool a data centre.

Edit: I was not involved in this project. You are wasting your time asking me questions.

  • Optional@lemmy.worldEnglish
    25·
    2 days ago

    But past cooling devices have not had enough cooling power for commercial use. The HKUST team developed a device that uses a new type of solid refrigerant, a nickel-titanium alloy with a higher nickel ratio. They also use calcium chloride as the working fluid that transfers heat away for cooling. Their design connects multiple alloy tubes together for a cascading effect that amplifies cooling.

    In outdoor tests, the desktop device cools a surface down from 24°C to -12°C, and froze water in two hours. Sun Qingping, the mechanical and aerospace engineering professor who led the work, said in a press release that the researchers plan to increase the system’s efficiency and make it more cost-effectiveness by using advanced shape memory alloy materials and trying different system designs.

    Cool.

    Er, so to speak.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
        1·
        6 hours ago

        No one’s saying the technology isn’t interesting just at the article is rubbish.

        Who wrote that headline anyway, the headline should have been scientists have created sub-zero solid state cooling, but the writer somewhat arbitrarily decided that this was about environmentalism which this has got nothing to do with.

        The scientists are not even making the claim that this is a necessarily viable technology, it’s just a thing that they’ve managed to achieve.

        I’m surprised the article writer didn’t do the usual thing that science “journalists” tend to do, which is claim that it kills cancer. So we should be thankful for small mercies.