Breakthrough Technology for Active Cooling Electronics/CPUs

August 18, 2012

Posted By:  RichardLWilliams

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I was wondering if Dell was interested in partnering to commercialise my company's technology?  Xergy is a cleantech startup patenting a technology that should revolutionize the 100 year-old refrigeration/cooling industry centred around (H)CFCs and motor-powered compressors.  We won GE's Ecomagination award in 2011.  We have high-performance, active-cooling technology for refrigeration/feezers, AC (home, office and auto) and electronics/CPUs. 

About 10x the performance of Peltier, better COPs than electromechanical and no motor/moving-parts, no GHG refrigerants and simply runs on electricity.  The technology is based around Electro-chemical compressors (ECC) and re-uses some technology from fuel-cell industry in a novel fashion.  We estimate individual devices could be small and suitable for electronics and processor cooling. 

One vision of our products is that they resemble lego-blocks (with a couple of electrical wires hanging from them).  Put two side-by-wide to double the cooling capacity; stack them, to double the "delta-T".  Like Peltiers, but an order-of-magnitude more efficient.

We currently have a low-fidelity working prototype (links on our website) which we demonstrated at US-DOE's ARPA-E conference, DC in Feb 2012.

We'd be delighted to chat about the prospect of collaboration
best regards

Richard L Williams
co-founder
www.XergyInc.com

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  • Aug 21, 2012     Comment Link

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    Posted By: RichardLWilliams

    Salanos:

    Your point about commercialisation (not being part of IdeaStorm) is understood - the invigilator also made that point clear to me after I posted.

    With respect to notebooks, they are getting hotter and today's only other technology for actively cooling them will actively drain your battery too (ie. Peltier thermoelectric devices).  We spotted (after it's deadline) a DARPA grant proposal 3 years ago for a CPU sized active cooling device (3cm by 3cm by 1 cm) so we got to thinking and my buddy (the inventor) said our technology could do it (ie. 10x better than Peltier) without changing the laws-of-physics (or rather, chemistry in our case).  It just needed a fair amount of money spent on engineering.  Hence our desire to reach out to the likes of Dell.


    Dimitrios:

    Think of it like this, whatever Electro-mechanical compressors (100 year old technology in your fridge, AC, car, etc.) can do (using the Carnot Cycle), we can do 30-50% more efficiently (ie. COP), (i) without the need for a motor (so we have a far more flexible "form-factor" and can be much smaller and don't need those motor-magnets with rare-earth metals and there is of course no motor-noise), (ii) without the need for ozone-harmful refrigerants and (iii) using only electricity (no need for a "fuel" or only wet/dry-air or whatever).

    The usual solution for CPU/electronics cooling is Peltier and theoretically we are 10 times more efficient.  Also we don't have all the plumbing paraphenalia usually associated with a water-cooling CPU's.

    I guess what we may need to do is find initially some high-value electronics cooling applications (or medical?  Insulin-cooling for your pocket?  "AA" battery cooled Vaccine transportation?).  Develop and sell those for a few years.  Continuously develop and improve the technology.  Then when things are slick enough, we position it for mass-market applications in notebooks/etc.
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  • Aug 19, 2012     Comment Link

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    Posted By: salanos

    If this could be implemented in notebooks, this would be fantastic, because notebooks are getting ridiculously hot these days.

    However, while I always support more advanced and effective cooling, I'd like to point out for you that as per IdeaStorm's terms and conditions, IdeaStorm is purely for suggestions and community feedback, so ideas that involve commercialization and profitable partnership between the submission writer (that is, you) do not quite run here.
    Nontheless, it's a good way to get some attention as some of the Dell staff here can elevate this to some higher brass.
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  • Aug 18, 2012     Comment Link

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    Posted By: Dimitrios

    wow sounds interesting :D

    can i ask you for some details about efficiency?
    how much Watt for -1 C° and the max  -C°  that this can bring?

    thank you :)